Letters, Extracts, and Notes. 395 



days. I think I wrote to you last from Las Palmas*. 

 From there we went to St. Paul's Rocks, but were unable to 

 land on account of the weather. We then proceeded to 

 Bahia, where we were delayed for a fortnight. At Bahia 

 some of us went to the Island of Haparica and camped out 

 there twice for two nights. On both occasions I collected, and 

 got about 150 birds, doubtless all of well-known species. 



" We were terribly annoyed there by grass-ticks and mos- 

 quitoes, and since we left all of us who camped out, with the 

 exception of myself, have had bad attacks of malaria. All 

 the same it was a most delightful experience. A night spent 

 in a Brazilian forest is a thing to be remembered. The 

 different Nightjars and Owls were calling all night, and 

 the cries of the awakening birds at dawn were delightful. 



" From Bahia we sailed to South Trinidad Island, where 

 we had excellent luck. The sea was smooth, and we landed 

 on two days without any difficulty at all. I made a good 

 collection, including several Sea-birds not known from there 

 before and a large series of Petrels. Of the Petrels I met 

 with only two species — (Estrelata wilsoni (both light and 

 dark phases) and <E. trinitatis (which is not nearly so 

 common as the former) . I entirely failed to find the so-called 

 CE. armingiana, although I looked most carefully for it. 

 We had a very hard climb, but got to the top of the island, 

 on which we found two sorts of trees, a low bush, several 

 plants, and plenty of tree-ferns. There is no land-bird on 

 the island, although there are several species of moths and 

 bees, and we saw some mice. I was much surprised at the 

 small size of the land-crabs; I had always heard that they were 

 very large and ferocious, but we found them small and very 

 timid. I took some good photographs of birds and views of 

 the island. Nearly the whole of the island is covered with 

 grass except at the top where the tree-ferns grow, but the 

 ground is rotten, and it is very difficult to walk about on it. 



" From Trinidad we sailed here. The first evening I had 

 no time to go ashore, but several of the men from the island 

 came on board, and I gathered from them that the Thrush 

 * See letter above, p. 214. 



