ACROSS NHAMBIQUARA LAND 229 



was the false bell-bird, a gray bird with loud, metallic 

 notes. There was also a tiny soft-tailed woodpecker, no 

 larger than a kinglet; a queer humming-bird with a slightly 

 flexible bill; and many species of ant-thrush, tanager, man- 

 akin, and tody. Among these unfamiliar forms was a 

 vireo looking much like our solitary vireo. At one camp 

 Cherrie collected a dozen perching birds; Miller a beauti- 

 ful little rail; and Kermit, with the small Liiger belt- rifle, 

 a handsome curassow, nearly as big as a turkey — out of 

 which, after it had been skinned, the cook made a deli- 

 cious canja, the thick Brazilian soup of fowl and rice than 

 which there is nothing better of its kind. All these birds 

 were new to the collection — no naturalists had previously 

 worked this region — so that the afternoon's work repre- 

 sented nine species new to the collection, six new genera, 

 and a most excellent soup. 



Two days after leaving Campos Novos we reached Vi- 

 Ihena, where there is a telegraph station. We camped once 

 at a small river named by Colonel Rondon the "Twelfth 

 of October," because he reached it on the day Columbus 

 discovered America — I had never before known what day 

 it was ! — and once at the foot of a hill which he had named 

 after Lyra, his companion in the exploration. The two 

 days' march — really one full day and part of two others 

 — ^was through beautiful country, and we enjoyed it thor- 

 oughly, although there were occasional driving rain-storms, 

 when the rain came in almost level sheets and drenched 

 every one and everything. The country was like that 

 around Campos Novos, and off^ered a striking contrast to 

 the level, barren, sandy wastes of the chapadao, which is 

 a healthy region, where great industrial centres can arise. 



