ELEVEN WEEKS IN NORTH-EASTERN BRAZIL. 245 



birds, however, are either from Para or Bio, comparatively few from 

 Pernambuco itself. I noticed two specimens of Rhea macro rhyncha (of 

 which more below) and an Ara spixi, said to be from Angola ! Amongst 

 the Mammalia I saw some good specimens of the big Armadillo (Prio- 

 dontes), which were said to be from the Sertoes of the interior. 



After being in Recife for about ten days, an opportunity occurred of 

 making a flying visit to Goyanna, a town situated near the coast about 

 fifty miles north of Recife, and a great emporium of the sugar-trade. 

 As there is a decent road the whole way, which passes by Olinda and 

 Iguarassu, and the weather was not at all settled, we decided to 

 and drive. I was thus enabled to see something of the general features 

 of the country, though there was little chance of shooting birds. Between 

 the two towns the country rises somewhat, the more elevated parts being 

 pretty generally covered with forest, often thick, whilst the lower slopes 

 of the hills, and the moister bottoms between them, are nearly uniformly 

 cleared or planted with sugar, some of the fields being of enormous 

 extent. Birds were plentiful, especially in the more wooded parts ; and 

 I now saw Jacamars and Parrots alive and wild for the first time, as well 

 as " Sangre de Boi" (Ramphoccelus bmsilius) and many other birds not Ibis, 1881, 

 to be found in the immediate vicinity of Recife. 



After about three weeks' stay at Estancia, I paid a week's visit to Cabo, 

 a station about twenty miles from Recife on the Recife and Sao Francisco 

 Railway, and the head quarters of the staff of that Company. Mr. Wells 

 Hood, the general manager of the line, with whom I had gone out from 

 England, possesses a capital residence here, and was kind enough to 

 entertain me during my visit to Cabo. Here the country, which is 

 generally flat so far, begins to rise in low, rounded hills, of no great 

 elevation, which are covered, on their tops and steeper slopes, with the 

 remains of the virgin forest. Unfortunately the weather during my stay 

 at Cabo was exceedingly bad. It rained continuously for about three 

 days, which resulted in a general flood of all the low-lying ground in the 

 vicinity. Hence my collection of birds did not increase much, though I 

 believe from what I saw that Cabo would in more favourable weather 

 be a good locality. On August 12 I returned to Estancia, making 

 excursions thence to Caxanga and other places in the vicinity. Having 

 pretty well exhausted the neighbourhood of Recife by this time, on 

 August 181 started for a trip to Parahyba do Norte, the capital of the 

 next province to the north of Pernambuco, in company with my friend 

 Mr. C. A. Craven, of the Recife Gas Company, whose acquaintance I 

 had made in Recife, and whom I found much interested in the natural 

 history of the country. Parahyba is about ten hours' run up the coast, 

 and I found the steamers belonging to the Brazilian Steam Navigation 

 Company by no means worthy of the evil reports I had heard of them. 

 They are fine, well-built boats, receiving a heavy government subsidy 

 for each trip made. By their means communication is kept up between 



