Cuap. VII. A LEAF-GRASSHOPPER. 145. 
their masters; they do not return to the malocas of their tribes, but join 
parties who go out to collect the produce of the forests and rivers, and 
lead a wandering semi-savage kind of life. 
We remained under the Serra dos Parentins all night. Early the 
next morning a light mist hung about the tree-tops, and the forest re- 
sounded with the yelping of Whaidpu-sai monkeys. I went ashore with 
my gun, and got a glimpse of the flock, but did not succeed in obtain- 
ing a specimen. They were of small size, and covered with long fur of 
a uniform grey colour. I think the species was the Callithrix donaco- 
philus. The rock composing the elevated ridge of the Parentins is the 
same coarse iron-cemented conglomerate which I have spoken of as. 
occurring near Pard, and in several other places. Many loose blocks 
were scattered about. The forest was extremely varied, and inextric- 
able coils of woody climbers stretched from tree to tree. Thongs of 
cacti were spread over the rocks and tree-trunks. The variety of small, 
beautifully-shaped ferns, lichens, and boleti, made the place quite a 
museum of cryptogamic plants. I found here two exquisite species of 
Longicorn beetles, and a large kind of grasshopper (Pterochroza), whose 
broad fore-wings resembled the leaf of a plant, providing the insect with 
a perfect disguise when they were closed ; whilst the hind wings were 
decorated with gaily-coloured eye-like spots. 
The negro left us and turned up a narrow channel, the Parand-mirim 
dos Ramos (the little river of the branches, z.e., having many ramifica- 
tions), on the road to his home, 130 miles distant. We then continued 
our voyage, and in the evening arrived at Villa Nova, a straggling village 
containing about seventy houses, many of which scarcely deserve the 
name, being mere mud-huts roofed with palm leaves. We stayed here 
four days. The village is built on a rocky bank, composed of the same 
coarse conglomerate as that already so often mentioned. In some 
places a bed of Tabatinga clay rests on the conglomerate. The soil in 
the neighbourhood is sandy, and the forest, most of which appears to be 
of second growth, is traversed by broad alleys which terminate to the 
south and east on the banks of pools and lakes, a chain of which 
extends through the interior of the land. As soon as we anchored I set 
off with Luco to explore the district. We walked about a mile along 
the marly shore, on which was a thick carpet of flowering shrubs, en- 
livened by a great variety of lovely little butterflies, and then entered the 
forest by a dry watercourse. About a furlong inland this opened on a 
broad placid pool, whose banks, clothed with grass of the softest green 
hue, sloped gently from the water’s edge to the compact wall of forest 
which encompassed the whole. The pool swarmed with water-fowl ; 
snowy egrets, dark-coloured striped herons, and storks of various species 
standing in rows around its margins. Small flocks of macaws were 
stirring about the topmost branches of the trees. Long-legged piosdcas 
(Parra Jacana) stalked over the water-plants on the surface of the pool, 
and in the bushes on its margin were great numbers of a kind of canary 
(Sycalis brasiliensis) of a greenish yellow colour, which has a short and 
not very melodious song. We had advanced but a few steps when we 
startled a pair of the Jaburti-moleque (Mycteria americana), a powerful 
bird of the stork family, four and a half feet in height, which flew up 
Ke) 
