MEMOIR. xxiii 
December 24th, 1852, containing “129 fishes, 12 snakes, 14 lizards, 
29 batrachians, and 2 alligators.” Drafts on Mr. S. Stevens, the 
London agent, were encashed by a Para firm, and part of the 
proceeds spent in purchasing cloth and sundry small wares used 
in exchange for products and food among the Indians. Six months 
of Para life set Bates longing for “ fresh woods.” Under date of 
December 3rd, 1848, he writes in his journal as follows :— 
- ‘©The woods are no longer novel to me. I pass under the shadow of the 
gigantic arborescent arums in the swampy woods of Olerea, tear through 
the twining bandinia, pass by the gorgeous foliage of epiphytous aracee—of 
many species; see the rich mantle of climbing pear and convolvuli toppling 
over the high palings of the suburbs, the green drapery that sweeps down 
from the tops of trees to the earth, concealing their trunks, on the forest 
border; the glorious crowns of the palms, murumurt, coco, arrai, jupati, 
tucuni, and other species, all found in the suburbs, some of their trunks 
ornamented with pendants of graceful ferns; the massy clumps of parasitic 
tillandsias and bromelias; the airy, golden-flowered cassias in Una road; 
with the twining passion flowers; the spacious shield leaf of cecropia; the 
feathery foliage of mimosa, the numerous species of melastoma, some of 
which are generally in flower—all these things are commonplace to me now. 
I want to be off to witness other novelties.”’ 
The first of Bates’s minor expeditions was up the river Tocan- 
tins, one of the largest of the twenty noble streams that feed the 
Great River. He returned to Para at the end of January 1849, to 
find a “complete settlement of all suspense and anxiety” as to 
non-receipt of news. Letters from the London agent reported 
good sale of consignments, “the completest satisfaction seeming to 
have resulted on all sides,’ and thus cheered, the work of collecting 
went on daily. “I enjoy my rambles more than ever,” he records 
in his journal, March 27th, 1849, “and glad to escape from the 
little and temporary affairs of this wretched nest of men into the 
eternal and grand scenes of the forest by which it is hemmed in. 
Although obliged to apply the attention closely to the details 
of most species, yet I do not forget the connection which the 
philosophical study of their forms has with the whole organic 
creation.” 
One of his letters to the Zoologzst thus describes his equipment 
for daily work :— 
‘* Between g and Io A.M. I prepare for the woods: a coloured shirt, pair 
of trousers, pair of common boots, and an old hat, are all my clothing ; over 
my left shoulder slings my double-barrelled gun, loaded, one with No. 10, 
one with No. 4 shot. In my right hand I take my net; on my left side 
