ACROSS NHAMBIQUARA LAND 229 



was the false bell-bird, a gray bird with loud, metallic 

 notes. There was also a tiny soft-tailed woodpecker, no 

 larger than a kinglet; a queer humming-bird with a slightly 

 flexible bill; and many species of ant-thrush, tanager, man- 

 akin, and tody. Among these unfamiliar forms was a 

 vireo looking much like our solitary vireo. At one camp 

 Cherrie collected a dozen perching birds; Miller a beauti- 

 ful little rail; and Kermit, with the small Liiger belt-rifle, 

 a handsome curassow, nearly as big as a turkey out of 

 which, after it had been skinned, the cook made a deli- 

 cious canja, the thick Brazilian soup of fowl and rice than 

 which there is nothing better of its kind. All these birds 

 were new to the collection no naturalists had previously 

 worked this region so that the afternoon's work repre- 

 sented nine species new to the collection, six new genera, 

 and a most excellent soup. 



Two days after leaving Campos Novos we reached Vi- 

 Ihena, where there is a telegraph station. We camped once 

 at a small river named by Colonel Rondon the "Twelfth 

 of October," because he reached it on the day Columbus 

 discovered America I had never before known what day 

 it was ! and once at the foot of a hill which he had named 

 after Lyra, his companion in the exploration. The two 

 days' march really one full day and part of two others 

 was through beautiful country, and we enjoyed it thor- 

 oughly, although there were occasional driving rain-storms, 

 when the rain came in almost level sheets and drenched 

 every one and everything. The country was like that 

 around Campos Novos, and offered a striking contrast to 

 the level, barren, sandy wastes of the chapadao, which is 

 a healthy region, where great industrial centres can arise, 



