316 Mr. W. A. Forbes on Eleven Weeks 



universally elsewhere in Brazil, a thick red clay, the roads 

 and by-paths remained almost impassable, rain falling heavily 

 nearly every day for some hours. 



In the " Gymnasium " of San Antonio is a small museum, 

 with a decent, though badly named, series of birds and Mam- 

 malia. Most of the birds, however, are either from Para or 

 Rio, comparatively few from Pernambuco itself. I noticed 

 two specimens of Rhea luacrorhyncha (of which more below) 

 and an Ara spixi, said to be from Angola ! Amongst the 

 Mammalia I saw some good specimens of the big Armadillo 

 {Priodontes) , which were said to be from the Sertoes of the 

 interior. 



After being in Recife for about ten days, an opportunity 

 occurred of making a flying visit to Goyanna, a town situated 

 near the coast about fifty miles north of Recife, and a great 

 emporium of the sugar-trade. As there is a decent road the 

 whole way, which passes by Olinda and Iguarassu, and the 

 weather was not at all settled, we decided to drive. I was thus 

 enabled to see something of the general features of the country, 

 though there was little chance of shooting birds. Between 

 the two towns the country rises somewhat, the more elevated 

 parts being pretty generally covered with forest, often thick, 

 whilst the lower slopes of the hills, and the moister bottoms 

 between them, are nearly uniformly cleared or planted with 

 sugar, some of the fields being of enormous extent. Birds 

 were plentiful, especially in the more wooded parts ; and I 

 now saw Jacamars and Parrots alive and wild for the first 

 time, as well as " Sangre de Boi " {Ramphocoelus brasilius) 



on the coast) in Pernambuco commences about September and continues 

 till March. November, January, and February are usually about the 

 hottest months. May, Jime, and July are all very wet months, on the 

 coast at least. The heat, even during the hot season, is never very great ; 

 during my stay, the ordinary temperature was about 78°-80° F. in the 

 shade, and about 8°-10° cooler at night. The thermometer rarely falls 

 below 65° even on the coldest nights, and at that temperature one begins 

 to shiver in the tropics and want blankets ! Fm-ther information on the 

 climate of Pernambuco will be found in a paper by M. Beringer in the 

 ' A.nuuaire ' of the French Meteorological Society, vol. xxvi. p. 28 (1878). 



