Z()()I.()(il(AI. SOCIK'I'Y HlI.I.l/I'IN 



Ml'SEL' GOELDI. PARA 

 Principal edifice. 



Ii.ul taken place since tliey landed sixty-seven 

 years before. From a population of fifteen 

 thousand in 1818, the city has grown to two 

 hundred thousand, and yet if one walks a little 

 distance inland or takes the tram to the end of 

 the line. Bates' classic description in his "Natu- 

 ralist on the River Amazons" still holds good. 

 At Nazareth where Bates first settled down to 

 work, he was surrounded on three sides by prim- 

 itive jungle. The Church of Nazareth still 

 stands and, as in his day, is still filled with hun- 

 dreds of evidences of the absolute faith of the 

 natives — waxen effigies of terrible ravages of 

 disease. The jungle has vanished, however, and 

 in its place are the spacious car-barns of the 

 electric tramway. Beyond, one may ride or 

 motor for a mile along the Avenida Nazareth 

 lined with balconied residences and shaded with 

 an unbroken line of mango trees. Another mile 

 and oi)en country is reached and almost imme- 

 diately, light jungle. Fifteen minutes' walk 

 from the tramway brings one within shade of 

 the Amazon jungle, where the birds and mon- 



Ml'SF.U C.OEI.DI. PAKA 



.'^orm- (>r llu- in-l.ill.itinns. 



keys .-md serjients and beautiful 

 morj>ho butterflies are abun- 

 dant, and exactly as they were 

 over si\ty years ago when Bates 

 .ind Wallace walked here; or 

 liiree centuries ago when white 

 men first founded this city; so 

 ])ersistent a battle does the trop- 

 ical jungle wage, and .so little 

 has man won from its grasp. 



Through the courtesy of Mr. 

 Walter Binns we were able 

 to traverse Bates' collecting 

 grounds along the River Una 

 which he describes so vividly in 

 the second chajiter of the "Nat- 

 uralist on the River Amazons." 

 We found the tile factory still in operation, and 

 as our canoe crept silently up the sinuous little 

 stream, the vegetation seemed as dense as I have 

 seen it in the heart of Guiana or Venezuela. 



While, considering its position. Para may be 

 r.inked as a fairly healthful city, even now one 

 may not li^■e with imjjunity in the surrounding 

 swamps. A malignant malaria had been work- 

 ing havoc amimg the nati^ es, and it laid its hand 

 on two of our party after a weeks sojourn. 



Of Para, commercially and politically, it is 

 not within my province to speak, but to the 

 naturalist this city offers as rich a field today as 

 at any time during- its history. 



Besides the admirable collecting and taxonom- 

 ic study of Dr. Snethlage. one worker in Para 

 is doing splendid original research. This is the 

 Rev. A. Miles Moss, who, being one of the busi- 

 est of men, finds time to hunt caterpillars. Fittle 

 by little he is elucidating the complete life his- 

 tories of the butterflies and moths of Par;i, 

 breeding and jjainting tin-m. and thus carrying- 

 on in this field the kind of work whicii must 

 soon come to be the most impor- 

 tant branch of zoological and 

 evolutionary research. 



Sixty-two s])ccimens of forty- 

 three species of Brazilian birds 

 were brought north to our Zoo- 

 logical Park. Fifteen species of 

 these are quite new to the col- 

 lection, while there can hardly 

 be said to be a common bird in 

 the lot. The collection is par- 

 ticularly rich in birds of strik- 

 ing a))i)earance, very desirable 

 for exhibition, some of them per- 

 haps the most bizarre of their 

 faniil\-. .\nion"- these mav be 



