92 NATURAL HISTORY Off 



in the play of imagination, the regions of supreme 

 repose form a feature in the physiognomy of the 

 country peculiar to this continent. " Forests, the 

 growth of thousands of years," says Humboldt in his 

 " Tableau de la Nature," "of an impenetrable thick- 

 ness, fill the humid country situate between the 

 Oronoco and the Amazons. Immense masses of 

 lead-coloured granite narrow the foamy beds of the 

 rivers. The mountains and woods resound unceas- 

 ingly with the roar of cataracts, the growl of the 

 jaguar, or the dull howl of the red monkey, which 

 foretells the approach of rain. In those places 

 where . the lowness of the waters leaves a sandy 

 beach uncovered, with open mouth, but motionless 

 as a rock, lies a crocodile, whose scaly body is co- 

 vered with birds. The tiger-marked boa, his tail 

 fixed to the trunk of a tree, his body rolled upon 

 itself, sure of his prey, lies in ambush on the bank ; 

 suddenly he uncoils to seize the young bull which 

 is just passing." 



Brazil has always been regarded as the most fer 

 tile region of South America, and that portion of it 

 lying between the twelfth and twenty-fifth degrees 

 of south latitude may be considered the richest in 

 the world in Coleoptera. Mexico perhaps is next 

 to it, for that country is much more prolific than 

 Guiana, so often referred to by the older Ento- 

 mologists, who became acquainted with its produc- 

 tions through the early French and Dutch settlers, 

 who have always been zealous collectors and culti- 



