Chap. I. WHITE ANTS. 59 



one is walking, and then squatting down on their 

 heels, are difficult to distinguish from the surrounding 

 soil. One kind (Hydropsalis psalidurus ?) has a long- 

 forked tail. In the daytime they are concealed in the 

 wooded ilhas, where I very often saw them crouched 

 and sleeping on the ground in the dense shade. They 

 make no nest, but lay their eggs on the bare ground. 

 Their breeding time is in the rainy season, and fresh 

 eggs are found from December to June. Birds have not 

 one uniform time for nidification here, as in temperate 

 latitudes. Gulls and plovers lay in September, when the 

 sand-banks are exposed in midriver in the dry season. 

 Later in the evening, the singular notes of the goat- 

 suckers are heard, one species crying Quao, Quao, another 

 Chuck-co-co-cao ; and these are repeated at intervals 

 far into the night in the most monotonous manner. A 

 great number of toads are seen on the bare sandy path- 

 ways soon after sunset. One of them was quite a 

 colossus, about seven inches in length and three in 

 height. This big fellow would never move out of the 

 way until we were close to him. If we jerked him 

 out of the path with a stick, he would slowly recover 

 himself, and then turn round to have a good impudent 

 stare. I have counted as many as thirty of these mon- 

 sters within a distance of half a mile. 



The surface of the campos is disfigured in all direc- 

 tions by earthy mounds and conical hillocks, the work 

 of many different species of white ants. Some of 

 these structures are five feet high, and formed of 

 particles of earth worked into a material as hard as 



