THE NATURALIST ON THE RIVER AMAZONS. 



665 



toward its root, and at this point the long 

 -wing naturally drops or is jerked off when 

 *he insect has no further use for it. The 

 white ant is endowed with wings simply for 

 the purpose of flying away from the colony 

 peopled by its wingless companions, to pair 

 with individuals of the same or other colonies, 

 -nd thus propagate and disseminate its kind. 

 The winged individuals are malts and fe- 

 males, while the great bulk of their wingless 

 fraternity are of no sex, but are of two castes, 

 soldiers and workers, which are restricted to 

 tiie functions of building the nests, nursing, 

 and defending the young brood. The two 

 sexes mate while on the ground after the 

 wings are shed ; and then the married 

 couples, if they escape the numerous enemies 

 "which lie in wait for them, proceed to the 

 4 ask of founding new colonies. Ants and 

 white ants have much that is analogous in 

 their modes of life ; they belong, however, 

 1o two widely different orders of insects, 

 strongly contrasted in their structure and 

 manner of growth. 



I amassed at Oaripi a very large collection 

 of beautiful and curious insects, amounting 

 ^altogether to about twelve hundred species. 

 The number of Coleoptera was remarkable, 

 seeing that this order is so poorly represented 

 near Para. I attributed their abundance to 

 the number of new clearings made in the vir- 

 gin forest by the native settlers. The felled 

 timber attracts lignivorous insects, and these 

 draw in tneir train the predaceous species of 

 various families. As a general rule, the 

 .species were smaller and much less brilliant 

 in colors than those of Mexico and South 

 Brazil. The species too, although numerous 

 were not represented by great numbers of 

 individuals ; they were also extremely nimble, 

 41 nd therefore much less easy of capture than 

 insects of the same order in temperate cli- 

 mates. The carnivorous beetles at C? r ipi 

 "were, like those of Para, chiefly arboreal. 

 Most of them exhibited a beautiful conKv- 

 iince for enabling them to cling to and run 

 over smooth or flexible surfaces, such as 

 leaves. Their tarsi or feet are broad, and 

 furnished beneath with a brush of short, stiff 

 liairs, while their claws are toothed in the 

 form of a comb, adapting thorn for clinging 

 to the smooth edges of leaves, the joint of 

 the foot which precedes the claw being cleft 

 so as to allow free play to the claw in grasp- 

 ing. The common dung-beetles at Caripf, 

 which flew about in the evening like the 

 Ge 'trupes, the familiar " shardborne beetle 

 with his drowsy hum" of our English lanes, 

 were of colossal size and beautiful colors. 

 One kind had a long spear-shaped horn pro- 

 jecting from the crown of its head (Phaua3us 

 lancifcr). A blow from this fellow, as he 

 <iame heavily flying along, was never very 

 pleasant. All the tribes of beetles which feed 

 on vegetable substances, fresh or decayed, 

 Tvere very numerous. The most beautiful of 

 these, but not the most common, were the 

 Longicornes, very graceful insects, having 

 slender bodies and long antemue, often orna- 

 mented with fringes and tufts of hair. They 



were found on flowers, on trunks of trees, or 

 flying about the new clearings. One small 

 species (Coreinia hirtipes) has a tuft of hair 

 on its hind legs, while many of its sister spe- 

 cies have a similar ornament on the antennae. 

 It suggests curious reflections when we see 

 an ornament like the feather of a grenadier's 

 cap situated on one part of the body in one 

 species, and in a totally different part in 

 nearly allied ones. I tried in vain to discover 

 the use of these curious brush-like decora- 

 tions. On the trunk of a living leguminous 

 tree, Petzell found a number of a very 

 rare and handsome species, the Platyster- 

 nus hebraeus, which is of a broad shape, 

 colored ochreous, but spotted and striped 

 with black, so as to resemble a domino. 

 On the felled trunks of trees, swarms 

 of gilded-green Longicornea occurred, of 

 small size (Chrysoprasis), which looked like 

 miniature musk-beetles, and, indeed, are 

 closely allied to those well-known European 

 insects. 



At length, on the 12th of February, I left 

 Caripi, my negro and Indian neighbors bid- 

 ding me a warm " adeos." I had passed a 

 delightful time, notwithstanding the many 

 privations undergone in the way of food. 

 The wet season had now set in ; the low- 

 lands and islands Would soon become flooded 

 daily at high water, and the difficulty of ob- 

 taining fresh provisions would increase. I 

 intended, therefore, to spend the next three 

 months at Para, in the neighborhood of 

 which there was still much to be done 

 in the intervals of fine weather, and then 

 start off on another excursion into the in- 

 terior. 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE LOWER AMAZONS PARA. TO OBYDOS. 



Modes of Travelling on the Amazons Preparations 

 for Voyage Life on Board a large Trading-vessel 

 The Narrow Channels joining the Para to the Ama- 

 zonsFirst sight, of the Great River Gurupa The 

 Great Shoal Flat-topped Mountains Santarem 

 Obydos. 



AT the time of my first voyage up the Am- 

 azons namely, in 1849 nearly all commu- 

 nication with the interior was by means of 

 small sailing-vessels, owned by traders resid- 

 ing in the remote towns and villages, who 

 seldom came to Para themselves, but in- 

 trusted vessels and cargoes to the care of 

 half-breeds or Portuguese cabos. Sometimes, 

 indeed, they risked all in the hands of the 

 Indian crew, making the pilot, who was also 

 steersman, do duty as supercargo. Now and 

 then, Portuguese and Brazilian merchants at 

 Para, furnished young Portuguese with mer- 

 chandise, and dispatched them to the interior, 

 to exchange the goods for produce among 

 the scattered population. The means of com 

 inunication, in fact, with the upper parts of 

 the Amazons had been on the decrease for 

 some time, on account of the augmented 

 difficulty of obtaining hands to navigate ves- 

 sels. Formerly, when the Government 

 wished to send any important functionary, 

 such as a judge or a military 



