206 The Andes and the Amazon. 



and beetle. There is scarcely a soiind in a tropical forest 

 which is joyous and cheering. The birds are usually si- 

 lent ; those that have voices utter a plaintive song, or hoarse, 

 shrill cry. Our door-yards are far more melodious on a 

 May morning. The most common birds on the Napo are 

 macavi^s, parrots, toucans,, and ciganas. The parrots, like 

 the majority in South America, are of the green type. The 

 toucan, peculiar to the New World, and distinguished by its 

 enormous bill, is a quarrelsome, imperious bird. It is clum- 

 sy in flight, but nimble in leaping from limb to limb. It 

 hops on the ground like a robin, and makes a shrill yelp- 

 m^—^jia-po-o-oo. Ecuadorians call it the predicador, or 

 preacher, because it wags its head like a priest, and seems 

 to say, " God gave it you." The feathers of the breast are 

 of most brilliant yellow, orange, and rose colors, and the 

 robes of the royal dames of Europe in the sixteenth cen- 

 tury were trimmed with them. The cigana or " gypsy" (in 

 Peru called " chansu") resembles a pheasant. The flesh has 

 a musky odor, and it is for this reason, perliaps, that they 

 exist in such numbers throughout the country. The In- 

 dians never eat them. In no country as in the Amazonian 

 Yalley is there such a variety of insects ; nowhere do we 

 find species of larger size or greater beauty. It is the 

 richest locality for butterflies ; Bates found twelve hun- 

 dred species in Brazil alone, or three times as many as in 

 all Europe. The splendid metallic-blue, and the yellow 

 and transparent-winged, are very abundant on the Napo ; 

 some rise high in the air; others, living in societies, look 

 like fluttering clouds. Moths are comparatively rare. The 

 most conspicuous beetle on the river is a magnificent green 

 species {Ohrysophora chrysochlora), always found arboreal, 

 like the majority of tropical coleopters ; they look like em- 

 erald gems clinging to the branches. There are two kinds 

 of bees, the black and yellow, which the Napos name re- 



