246 ELEVEN WEEKS IN NORTH-EASTERN BRAZIL. 



the imperial capital and the capitals of the more northern provinces of 

 the empire up to Para. Parahyba is situated in reality only about four 

 to five miles from the sea-coast, on a river which is navigable for these 

 steamers nearly up to. the town. The river, however, turns off consider- 

 ably to the north at about the point where the town is situated, so that 

 Ibis, 1881 , it is a trip of some ten to fifteen miles up the river from the bar at its 

 p * " mouth to where the steamer stops. The country is low, and the river is 

 fringed on each side with mangrove- swamps, behind which the forest- 

 covered country, which rises towards the interior, appears. On the 

 mud-banks exposed at low tide many white Egrets (Ardea candidissimct) 

 might be seen, as well as tens of thousands of a large and brightly 

 coloured land-crab, with vermilion white-tipped claws, which gave quite a 

 bright appearance to the scene. A railway, the Conde d'Eu, has just 

 been commenced at Parahyba, to run inwards for about fifty miles, with 

 the object of developing the sugar business. The inaugural fetes which 

 celebrated the turning of the first sod had just terminated when we 

 arrived, and the English engineers charged with the construction of the 

 line were now the most important and popular personages in the town. 

 Their then chief, Mr. A. M. Rymer Jones, a son of the well-known 

 naturalist lately deceased, was kind enough to entertain me at the house 

 they occupied, and he and his companions made us very much at home 

 during our stay there. 



The country round Parahyba is flat, but rather thickly covered with 



forest, which extends from near the town to near the sea. I succeeded 



in securing the services of a Brazilian " Cagador "to shoot and show the 



way about. Though the number of birds I got did not at all equal the 



anticipations I had formed from, his glowing accounts of the abundance 



of all kinds of beasts and birds around Parahyba, I nevertheless got a 



considerable number of new ones, and had several very enjoyable 



excursions with him and some of my English friends. Besides the thick 



forests, nearer the town there is a good deal of scrub and bush-covered 



country, where small birds were rather plentiful. In the forests, indeed, 



these were far less abundant than in the more open parts ; and several 



times I walked for miles along tracts in the high and thick forests scarcely 



seeing or hearing a bird of any kind. " Antonio/' however, assured us 



that at the proper season of the year, i. e. when the fruits were ripe, 



these forests abounded with " Tocanos," "Trocas" (Columba speriosa), 



" Grallegas " (Columba rufina), and many other birds of which I saw 



Ibis, 1881, nothing. Antonio himself was armed, like most Brazilians, with an 



P' 319 ' ancient muzzle-loader of Trench make ; it was quite uncertain whether 



or not this weapon would go off when needed. Usually it missed fire 



three or four times in succession, by which time the bird aimed at had 



generally been prudent enough to retire out of range. Hence he did 



not increase my bag very much, though his astonishment at the shooting- 



