CiiAP. VII. ANIMALS OF CACAO GROVE. 323 



were brought from tliis river six months previously. The 

 channel was navigable by montarias only in the rainy 

 season ; it was now a half-dry watercourse, the mouth 

 lying about eight feet above the present level of the 

 Amazons. The principal mouth of the TJrubu lies 

 between this place and Serpa. The river communicates 

 with the lake of Saraca, but I could make out nothing 

 clearly as to its precise geographical relations with that 

 large sheet of water, which is ten or twelve leagues 

 in length and one to two in breadth, and has an old- 

 established Brazilian settlement, called Silves, on its 

 banks. 



It was very pleasant to roam in our host's cacaoal. 

 The ground was clear of underwood, the trees were about 

 thirty feet in height, and formed a dense shade. Two 

 species of monkey frequented the trees, and I was told 

 committed great depredations when the fruit was ripe. 

 One of these, the macaco prego (Cebus cin'hifer ?), is a 

 most impudent thief ; it destroys more than it eats by its 

 random, hasty way of plucking and breaking the fruits, 

 and when about to return to the forest, carries away all 

 it can in its hands or under its arms. The other species, 

 the pretty little Chrysothrix sciureus, contents itself 

 with devouring what it can on the spot. A variety of 

 beautiful insects basked on the foliage where stray 

 gleams of sunlight glanced through the canopy of broad 

 soft-green leaves. Numbers of an elegant, long-legged 

 tiger-beetle (Odontoch eila egi'egia) ran and flew about 

 over the herbage. It belo ngs to a sub-genus j^eculiar to 

 the warmest parts of America, the species of which are 

 found only in the shade of the forest, and are seen quite 



