Cuap. II. ARBOREAL FAUNA. 35 
flowers occurred in the forest, few or no insects were seen upon them. 
In the open country or campos of Santarem, on the Lower Amazons, 
flowering trees and bushes are more abundant, and there a large number 
of floral insects are attracted. The forest bees of South America be- 
longing to the genera Melipona and Euglossa are more frequently seen 
feeding on the sweet sap which exudes from the trees, or on the excre- 
ment of birds on leaves, than on flowers. 
We were disappointed also in not meeting with any of the larger 
animals in the forest. There was no tumultuous movement, or sound 
of life. We did not see or hear monkeys, and no tapir or jaguar crossed 
our path. Birds, also, appeared to be exceedingly scarce. We heard, 
however, occasionally the long-drawn, wailing note of the Inambu, a 
kind of partridge (Crypturus cinereus ?); and also, in the hollows on 
the banks of the rivulets, the noisy notes of another bird, which seemed 
to go in pairs, amongst the tree-tops, calling to each other as they went. 
These notes resounded through the solitude. Another solitary bird 
had a most sweet and melancholy song ; it consisted simply of a few 
notes, uttered in a plaintive key, commencing high, and descending by 
harmonic intervals. It was probably a species of warbler of the genus 
Trichas. All these notes of birds are very striking and characteristic of 
the forest. 
I afterwards saw reason to modify my opinion, founded on these first 
impressions, with regard to the amount and variety of animal life in this 
and other parts of the Amazonian forests. There is, in fact, a great 
variety of mammals, birds, and reptiles, but they are widely scattered, 
and all excessively shy of man. The region is so extensive, and uniform 
in the forest clothing of its surface, that it is only at long intervals that 
animals are seen in abundance, where some particular spot is found 
which is more attractive than others. Brazil, moreover, is throughout 
poor in terrestrial mammals, and the species are of small size; they do 
not, therefore, form a conspicuous feature in its forests. The huntsman 
would be disappointed who expected to find here flocks of animals 
similar to the buffalo herds of North America, or the swarms of ante- 
lopes and herds of ponderous pachyderms of Southern Africa. The 
largest and most interesting portion of the Brazilian mammal fauna is 
arboreal in its habits; this feature of the animal denizens of these 
forests I have already alluded to. The most zw¢ensely arboreal animals 
in the world are the South American monkeys of the family Cebide, 
many of which have a fifth hand for climbing in their prehensile tails, 
adapted for this function by their strong muscular development, and the 
naked palms under their tips. This seems to teach us that the South 
American fauna has been slowly adapted to a forest life, and, therefore, 
that extensive forests must have always existed since the region was first 
peopied by mammalia. But to this subject, and to the natural history 
of the monkeys, of which thirty-eight species inhabit the Amazons region, 
I shall have to return. 
We often read, in books of travels, of the silence and gloom of the 
Brazilian forests. ‘They are realities, and the impression deepens on a 
longer acquaintance. The few sounds of birds are of that pensive or 
mysterious character which intensifies the feeling of solitude rather than 
