CiiAP. VII. WATER-FOWL. 281 



The negro left us and turned up a nan'ow channel, 

 the Parana-mirim dos Ramos (the little river of the 

 branches, i.e., having many ramifications), on the road 

 to his home, 130 miles distant. We then continued 

 our voyage, and in the evening amved at Villa Nova, a 

 straggling village containing about seventy houses, many 

 of which scarcely deserve the name, being mere mud- 

 huts roofed with palm-leaves. We stayed here four 

 days. The village is built on a rocky bank, composed 

 of the same coarse conglomerate as that already so 

 often mentioned. In some places a bed of Tabatinga 

 clay rests on the conglomerate. The soil in the neigh- 

 bourhood is sandy, and the forest, most of which 

 appears to be of second growth, is traversed by broad 

 alleys which terminate to the south and east on the banks 

 of pools and lakes, a chain of which extends through 

 the interior of the land. As soon as we anchored I 

 set off with Luco to explore the district. We walked 

 about a mile along the marly shore, on which was a 

 thick carpet of flowering shrubs, enlivened by a great 

 variety of lovely little butterflies, and then entered 

 the forest by a dry watercourse. About a furlong- 

 inland this opened on a broad placid pool, whose banks, 

 clothed with grass of the softest green hue, sloped 

 gently from the water's edge to the compact wall of 

 forest which encompassed the whole. The pool 

 swarmed with water-fowl ; snowy egrets, dark-coloured 

 striped herons, and storks of various species standing in 

 rows around its margins. Small flocks of Macaws were 

 stirring about the topmost branches of the trees. Long- 

 legged piosocas (Parra Jacana) stalked over the water- 



