436 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



aloft sails majestically the Jote (Cathartes /ceteris) ; thus employed, up glides 

 silently the home-made canoe, with a shaggy, hoary ancient, paddling from 

 the stern. . . . These ropes [the Liana], for such they resemble, 

 suggest one use for which they arc probably intended (?), and instinctively 

 our eye wanders in search of a cousin of man. Here, however, he is not, 

 although the Stentor caraya, as well as the Hapale pencMata, is found on 

 the shores of the Upper Uruguay, but in his place are the Puma, 

 Jaguar, Cayman, Carpincho, Gato del Monte [FeUs Geoffroyi), the more 

 peaceful and elegant Curassow, the Pavo del Monte (Crax alector), various 

 species of Carpinteroa [Picidts), amongst which the hoary-headed Leuco- 

 nerpes candidus is conspicuous : Rhopalocera of brilliant lines, including the 

 sedate-sailing Euryades, and beetles innumerable, especially of the families 

 Lamellicornia and LongicorDia." 



There is much more in the same style, but we hasten to leave 

 fchis menagerie, and get to some place where there is a less fearful 

 assemblage of beasts and fowl. The next trip is to the western 

 districts of Eioja, Catamarca, and Tucuman, now rendered 

 accessible by lines of railway which unite in Cordova; a tract of 

 country in which water is the chief desideratum, except in a few 

 valleys- like that of Catamarca, where Mr. White obtained the 

 splendid Fire-tailed Humming-bird, Sparganv/ra sappho, and 

 two of the more sober-coloured genus Chlorostilbon. The de- 

 scriptions of these districts are very interesting, and are not 

 entirely disfigured by an unintelligible luxuriance of words — 

 that tropical overgrowth which so often chokes the author's 

 meaning. Explorations were pushed to Andagala, and to Acon- 

 ciqua, where some vast ruins of an Indian town and fortress 

 exist ; thence by Salta to Injuy where, on the frontier of Bolivia, 

 the author found himself once more in the tropical primaeval 

 forests. At Oran, where he remained fourteen days, be obtained 

 a new member of the Dendrocolaptida, which has been named 

 after him by Mr. P. L. Sclater as SynaUaxis whitei, and on the 

 Sierras of Totoral, near Catamarca, he had already procured a 

 finch which was distinguished by the same high authority from 

 Poospiza nigrorufa, and named P. erythrophrys ('Ibis,' 1881, 

 p. 599). Thence be returned to Salta, and came down by 

 diligence to Tucuman. 



The last excursion described is one up the Uruguay again and 

 down the Parana. It will be news to some naturalists to learn 

 that there are two species of Seals found in the former river, one 



