24 BULLETIN: MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 
ground a few kilometers south of Corytibanos, frogs abounded in 
small grassy swamps or lakelets. One frog had a weak peep, another 
a rattling croak, and one a cry like that of ababy. The great number 
of these small lakelets on the trap plateau with standing sweet water 
even in the dry season of the year is evidence that the rock crevices are 
well supplied with water. The occasional rains which we encountered 
and the impervious nature of the deeper rock together with the 
residual clays which form the bottoms of depressions unite to keep 
much water in sight at the surface. Yet there is a great variation 
in the amount of permanent moisture present in the soil in the several 
habitats of plants, the quantity increasing from the hills towards the 
narrow valley floors as is exemplified in the distribution of the tree- 
ferns and the bamboos. We saw grass or forest fires yesterday and 
today in distant broad valleys. 
Another puma was reported in sight by the men just as we retired. 
The first snake which I have so far seen in Brazil, a small bright 
graceful green snake, was encountered on one of the little bridges 
south of Corytibanos. Araucaria continues to be the dominant 
forest tree. With it and rivalling it in size is the scraggly imbuia 
whose bole attains a diameter of 3 feet or about a meter. What 
impressed me most concerning the trees of south Brazil was the 
small ovate leaves with entire margins which so many of them pos- 
sess. The broad leaved oaks, maples, tulip-trees and other forms 
familiar to the North American as existing species with precursors 
occurring fossil as far back as the Cretaceous are here wanting. So 
far as leaf evolution goes these simple outlines recall the forms which 
are so characteristic of primitive types in all organisms. 
On the north bank of the small stream on which we camped this. 
night there was exposed a bed of red shale traversed by small 
vertical faults with downthrow in each case on the west. This 
stream, the Lageado penteado, is a branch of the Rio Canoas. The 
name Lageado applied to streams like that of Lages given to the town 
to which we were bound has reference to the slabs of sandstones. 
which abound in this region and “pave” as it were the beds of the 
small streams. 
The Canoas river has shifted its course in the degradation of the 
region down the dip of the formations so as to hug the southern edge 
of the basalt. 
I saw no fossils in the red shales but found some concentric con- 
choidal fractures or joints. 
August 26th.— Light showers during the night. Ant-hills and 
