240 NATUEAL HISTOEY OF 



chants of Kio, at which a number of celebrities, including the 

 Emperor and Empress of Brazil, and the Comte d'Eu, were 

 present — the great sensation of the evening to the Brazilians 

 being the advent of the Prince's Highland piper, in national 

 costume, blowing on his instrument, the sounds produced 

 being styled " Musica Bretanica," by those who crowded 

 around the performer. 



On the 23d one of the officers, who had been on shore 

 engaged in butterfly-hunting, brought on board with him a 

 live snake, which he had caught and tied up in his net. This 

 was a specimen of the coral-snake {Elajps corallinus), regarded 

 as very venomous by the Brazilians, a beautiful creature, 

 banded transversely with crimson and black, and with the 

 ventral scuta vermilion in colour. On the net being opened, I 

 secured it by catching it by the neck with a pair of forceps, and 

 then dropping it into a jar of spirits. On the 29th I landed 

 in the morning with a companion, and had a long and inte- 

 resting walk, following the road leading up to the tanks for 

 three or four miles, and then striking into a path leading over 

 a, thickly-wooded hill lying behind the Corcovado mountain, 

 and separated from it by a deep valley, and for some distance 

 running parallel with an aqueduct which feeds the tanks 

 from which the aqueduct supplying the town arises. The 

 walk was most agreeably shaded, and the variety of the 

 foliage wonderful. Several remarkable trees attracted my 

 attention, to two of which I shall alone refer, — one, I be- 

 lieve, a kind of fig, which supports itself by wrapping its 

 branches around another tree, till it kills its victim in its 

 tight embrace, when both, as a rule, come to the ground 

 together ; and the other, a giant of the forest, the Coura- 

 tari Estrellensis, or an allied species. The stem of this 

 magnificent tree frequently attains a height of from seventy 



