Letters, Extracts, Notices, tyc. 631 



decmnanus) employs among its building-materials in this 

 district large quantities of a black hair-like substance, much 

 like horsehair or delicate and elongated roots in appearance, 

 which botanical researches, made in our Museum, had 

 proved to be a Lichen, but of which it was not then 

 possible to ascertain the exact scientific name. Some 

 time afterwards Dr. v. Ihering, Director of the Sao Paulo 

 Museum, wrote and told me that I was in error, and had 

 mistaken for a Lichen what was nothing more than the 

 fibre of the well-known Bromeliacean epiphyte Tillandsia 

 usneoides. I answered him at once that such a mistake 

 was out of the question, from the simple fact that the 

 Tillandsia (well-known to me from many years' residence in 

 Southern Brazil) was not found on the Lower Amazon. To 

 this Dr. v. Ihering replied that here again I had made a 

 mistake, my assertion that the Tillandsia did not exist on 

 the Lower Amazon being contrary to the fact ! 



As may be supposed, I was rather surprised at the courage 

 of Dr. v. Ihering in denying, without the slightest evidence, 

 facts that were known to us on the Lower Amazon as matters 

 of daily observation. But I was still more surprised when I 

 found that my colleague in Sao Paulo, in the < Revista do 

 Museu Paulista' (vol. iv. pp. 195, 218), had proclaimed to 

 the whole world my supposed errors in such terms as could 

 not be taken otherwise than in an unfriendly sense. 



It was obvious that my colleague Dr. J. Huber, Head of 

 the Botanical Section of the Para Museum, could not allow 

 such an attack against his professional capacity to pass 

 without remark. He has, therefore, written and published 

 in the ' Boletin do Museu Paranese' (vol. iii. pp. 328, 343) 

 an article on the question (" Sobre os materiales do ninho do 

 Japu"), of which I send you a copy. In this article Dr. 

 Huber has demonstrated most clearly the incorrectness of 

 Dr. v. lhering's assertions respecting the nest-building 

 materials used by the Ostinops in this district, and has shown 

 by description and figures the structural differences between 

 the supposed Lichen on the one hand and the fibres of the 

 Tillandsia on the other ; the only modification to be made 



