318 Mr. W. A. Forbes on Eleven Weeks 



fifteen miles up the river from the bar at its mouth to where 

 the steamer stops . The country is low^ and the river is fringed 

 on each side with mangrove-swamps^ behind which the forest- 

 covered country^ which rises towards the interior^ appears. 

 On the mud-banks exposed at low tide many white Egrets 

 {Ardea candidissima) might be seen, as well as tens of 

 thousands of a large and brightly coloured land-crab, with 

 vermilion white-tipped claws, which gave quite a bright 

 appearance to the scene. A railway, the Conde d^Eu, has 

 just been commenced at Parahyba, to run inwards for \ibout 

 fifty miles, with the object of developing the sugar business. 

 The inaugural fetes which celebrated the turning of the first 

 sod had just terminated when we arrived, and the English 

 engineers charged with the construction of the line were now 

 the most important and popular personages in the town. 

 Their then chief, Mr. A. M. Rymer Jones, a son of the well- 

 known naturalist lately deceased, was kind enough to enter- 

 tain me at the house they occupied, and he and his compa- 

 nions made us very much at home during our stay there. 



The country round Parahyba is flat, but rather thickly 

 covered with forest, which extends from near the town to 

 near the sea. I succeeded in securing the services of a Bra- 

 zilian " Cagador '' to shoot and show the way about. Though 

 the number of birds I got did not at all equal the anticipations 

 I had formed from his glowing accounts of the abundance of 

 all kinds of beasts and birds around Parahyba, I nevertheless 

 got a considerable number of new ones, and had several very 

 enjoyable excursions with him and some of my English friends. 

 Besides the thick forests, nearer the town there is a good deal 

 of scrub and bush-covered country, Avhere small birds were 

 rather plentiful. In the forests, indeed, these were far less 

 abundant than in the more open parts ; and several times I 

 walked for miles along tracts in the high and thick forests 

 scarcely seeing or hearing a bird of any kind. "An- 

 tonio,'"" however, assured us that at the proper season 

 of the year, i. e. when the fruits were ripe, these forests 

 abounded with " Tocanos,''^ '' Trocas ''•' ( Cohimba speciosa) , 

 " Gallegas^'' {Columba rufina), and many other birds of which 



