RESIDENCE AT TARAPOTO 83 



A SKETCH OF SPRUCE'S BOTANICAL EXCURSIONS 



WHILE RESIDING AT TARAPOTO 



(Bv THE EDITOR) 



[Among Spruce's MSS. are a number of loose 

 sheets (about sixty or seventy) in a stiff paper cover, 

 inscribed " Notes for Description of Tarapoto, in the 

 Andes of Maynas or Eastern Peru." These are 

 grouped under twenty - five headings, including 

 topography and geology ; the inhabitants, their 

 industries, customs, amusements, etc. ; the climate 

 and natural history of the surrounding country ; 

 languages, government, etc. etc., evidently showing 

 that he intended writing a full account of the 

 interesting and little known district. But the 

 " Notes " themselves are very fragmentary, and 

 quite unfitted for any one but a person with full 

 local knowledge to make any use of. Some are 

 mere headings of subjects to be treated, others are 

 very brief memoranda of facts or figures, while 

 wherever there is any consecutive description this 

 has been often utilised for some of the letters or 

 extracts already given. 



Besides these loose memoranda, there is 

 small " Note-book " already referred to, ' 

 a list of all his more important botanical e> 

 generally a mere bald statement that such a < 

 or mountain was visited on such a day, 

 month, with, very rarely, a note added ol 

 special feature of the excursion. a suppl 



to this, we have a few scattered 

 "notes" of some of the more interesting*, 

 but these, too, are quite fra^mrntury and 



