ACROSS NHAMBIQUARA LAND 213 



year. Just before sunset and just after sunrise big, noisy, 

 blue-and-yellow macaws flew over this camp. They were 

 plentiful enough to form a loose flock, but each pair kept 

 to itself, the two individuals always close together and 

 always separated from the rest. Although not an abun- 

 dant, it was an interesting, fauna which the two naturalists 

 found in this upland country, where hitherto no collections 

 of birds and mammals had been made. Miller trapped 

 several species of opossums, mice, and rats which were new 

 to him. Cherrie got many birds which he did not recog- 

 nize. At this camp, among totally strange forms, he found 

 an old and familiar acquaintance. Before breakfast he 

 brought in several birds: a dark-colored flycatcher, with 

 white forehead and rump and two very long tail-feathers; 

 a black and slate-blue tanager; a black ant-thrush with a 

 concealed white spot on its back, at the base of the neck^ 

 and its dull-colored mate; and other birds which he be- 

 lieved to be new to science, but whose relationships with 

 any of our birds are so remote that it is hard to describe 

 them save in technical language. Finally, among these 

 unfamiliar forms was a veery, and the sight of the rufous- 

 olive back and faintly spotted throat of this singer of our 

 northern Junes made us almost homesick. 



Next day was brilliantly clear. The mules could not 

 be brought in until quite late in the morning, and we had 

 to march twenty miles under the burning tropical sun, 

 right in the hottest part of the day. From a rise of ground 

 we looked back over the vast, sunlit landscape, the endless 

 rolling stretches of low forest. Midway on our journey 

 we crossed a brook. The dogs minded the heat much. 

 They continually ran off to one side, lay down in a shady 



