in North-eastern Brazil. 315 



San Antonio and Boa Vista. Northwards there lies between 

 Eecife and Olinda a low^ mangrove-covered, swampy tract, 

 separated from the §ea by a beach of sand and shingle, whilst 

 to the south lies Cocoa-nut Island and more swampy country. 

 Towards the west lies the suburb called Boa Vista ; and here, 

 and extending more or less to Caxanga (an outlying village 

 celebrated for its pine-apples, with which Recife is connected 

 by a street-railway), are situated the villas and houses of the 

 more wealthy inhabitants. These are generally surrounded 

 by gardens, often well kept and stocked with all kinds of 

 tropical plants, native or otherwise. Here, in a quarter 

 called Estancia, I found excellent accommodation at a 

 boarding-house kept by two American ladies, and tenanted 

 chiefly by Englishmen engaged in business in Recife. As the 

 house stood in a large garden of its own, with numerous fruit- 

 trees, and abutted on a considerable tract of marshy and 

 little cultivated ground, I determined on making this my 

 head quarters, and after safely passing my baggage through 

 the Custom House, set to work on the birds and insects. 



There are some considerable patches of wood on the out- 

 skirts of the town in this direction, and numerous more or 

 less deserted gardens, orangeries, and pieces of marshy 

 ground, in which birds were fairly abundant, though in the 

 town itself — excepting Urubus {Catliartes atratus), a stray 

 Humming-bird or two. Swallows [Hirwido leucorrhoa) , and 

 " Lavenderas " {Fluvicola climacura) , which last are to be seen 

 everywhere and are very tame, like Robins — not a bird is to be 

 seen. No regular forest is met with till near Caxanga, about 

 8-10 miles from Recife, where the country becomes hilly and 

 covered with thick wood, which, in places, is, I believe, un- 

 doubted virgin forest, though most of this has been cleared 

 and replaced by second-growtli {capoeira) of varying size 

 and thickness. 



Unfortunately the Aveather was not at all favourable to 

 collecting during my stay in Recife, the rainy season, which 

 usually, I was told, ceases about the end of July, lasting on 

 more or less for another month *. As the soil here is, as nearly 



* The dry and hot weather (which also is the season for yellow fever 



