Cuap. VII. TICKS. 15 
liable to break off and remain in the wound. A little tobacco juice 
is generally applied to make them loosen their hold. They do not 
cling firmly to the skin by their legs, although each of these has a 
pair of sharp and fine claws, connected with the tips of the member 
by means of a flexible pedicle. When they mount to the summits of 
slender blades of grass, or the tips of leaves, they hold on by their fore- 
legs only, the other three pairs being stretched out so as to fasten on 
any animal which comes in their way. The smaller of the two species 
is of a yellowish colour ; it is much the most abundant, and sometimes 
falls upon one by scores. When distended, it is about the size of a 
No. 8 shot ; the larger kind, which fortunately comes only singly to the 
work, swells to the size ofa pea. 
In some parts of the interior the soil is composed of very coarse 
sand and small angular fragments of quartz; in these places no trees 
grow. I visited, in company with Padre Torquato, one of these 
treeless spaces or campos, as they are called, situated five miles 
from the village. The road thither led through a varied and beautiful 
forest, containing many gigantic trees. I missed the Assai, Miriti, 
Paxitiba, and other palms which are all found only on rich moist soils ; 
but the noble Bacdba was not uncommon, and there was a great diver- 
sity of dwarf species of Maraja palms (Bactris), one of which, called 
the Peuririma, was very elegant, growing to a height of twelve or 
fifteen feet, with a stem no thicker than a man’s finger. On arriving at 
the campo all this beautiful forest abruptly ceased, and we saw before 
us an oval tract of land, three or four miles in circumference, destitute 
even of the smallest bush. The only vegetation was a crop of coarse 
hairy grass growing in patches. The forest formed a hedge all round 
the isolated field, and its borders were composed in great part of trees 
which do not grow in the dense virgin forest, such as a great variety 
of bushy Melastomas, low Byrsomina trees, myrtles, and Lacre trees, 
whose berries exude globules of wax resembling gamboge. On the 
margins of the campo wild pine-apples also grew in great quantity. 
The fruit was of the same shape as our cultivated kind, but much 
smaller, the size being that of a moderately large apple. We gathered 
several quite ripe; they were pleasant to the taste, of the true pine- 
apple flavour, but had an abundance of fully developed seeds, and 
only a small quantity of eatable pulp. There was no path beyond this 
campo; in fact, all beyond is terra incognita to the inhabitants of 
Villa Nova. 
The only interesting Mammalian animal which I saw at Villa Nova 
was a monkey of a species new to me: it was not, however, a native of 
the district, having been brought by a trader from the river Madeira, 
a few miles above Borba. It was a howler, probably the Mycetes 
stramineus of Geoffroy St. Hilaire. The howlers are the only kinds of 
monkey which the natives have not succeeded in taming. They are 
often caught, but they do not survive captivity many weeks. The one 
of which I am speaking was not quite full grown. It measured sixteen 
inches in length, exclusive of the tail; the whole body was covered 
with rather long and shining dingy-white hair, the whiskers and beard 
only being of a tawny hue. It was kept in a house, together with a 
