174 



RIO PARANA. 



fish for our dinner : there were several kinds, and 

 all good eating. A fish called the "arinado" (a 

 Silurus) is remarkable from a harsh gi'ating noise 

 which it makes when caught by hook and line, and 

 which can be distinctly heard when the fish is be- 

 neath the water. This same fish has the power of 

 fiiTtily catching hold of any object, such as the blade 

 of an oar or the fishing-line, with the strong spine 

 both of its pectoral and dorsal fin. In the evening 

 the weather was quite tropical, the thennometer 

 standing at 79*^. Numbers of fireflies were hover- 

 ing about, and the musquitoes were very trouble- 

 some. I exposed my hand for five minutes, and it 

 was soon black with them ; I do not suppose there 

 could have been less than fifty, all busy sucking. 



October \bth. — We got under way and passed 

 Punta Gorda, where there is a colony of tame In- 

 dians from the province of Missiones. We sailed 

 rapidly down the cuiTent, but before sunset, fi-om 

 a silly fear of bad weather, we brought-to in a nar- 

 row ai-m of the river. I took the boat and rowed 

 some distance up this creek. It was very naiTow, 

 winding, and deep ; on each side a wall thirty or 

 forty feet high, formed by trees intwined with 

 creepers, gave to the canal a singularly gloomy 

 appearance. I here saw a very extraordinary bird, 

 called the Scissor-beak (Rhynchops nigra). It has 

 short legs, web feet, extremely long-pointed wings, 

 and is of about the size of a tern. The beak ia 



