4320 Natural-History Collectors, 



" Santarem, December 17th, 1853. — I now forward the collection 

 of insects I have made up the River Tapajos, entirely at the Indian 

 village called " Altar do Chao : " I have not had time to prepare the 

 whole of the miscellaneous orders, but the Lepidoptera are complete. 

 I left Santarem a few days after I last wrote to you, as I then told you 

 1 should. We departed on the 26th of August, at 7 p.m., and arrived 

 at our destination at 11 a.m. the next day ; the place is one of 

 the most wretched, starved, ruinous villages that could be found 

 on the earth, although so near a civilized place, but the situation is 

 one of the most lovely spots that Nature has marked out, — a deep 

 bay, belt of snowy sandy beach, towering pyramidal hills, wooded 

 ridges, and what is of more consequence to me, such intermingling 

 virgin forest stretching inwards towards the untrodden central deserts. 

 There is no communication between this and Santarem except in 

 little Indian boats. I was set down there as a favour by an Itaiuba 

 tradesman. It would have been easier for me to have gone straight 

 on to Itaiuba, about 100 or 200 miles beyond my last trip, but I de- 

 clined it, after making minute inquiries as to the nature of the coun- 

 try ; it is chiefly dry, sandy campo, with no virgin forest near, a style 

 of country which I well know will not repay investigation, and such is 

 nearly the whole of the borders of the River Tapajos ; the best part of 

 my collection las year not being made on the main river, but in the 

 branch river Cupari. I worked the forests of Altar do Chao very 

 closely, losing very few days from bad weather, from the 27th of 

 August to the 30th of November, on which day I returned to San- 

 tarem. You will find many of the handsomest of the new species of 

 last year, and some very remarkable and new things, good series 

 of specimens, indeed I consider the Lepidoptera to be very fine ; I 

 took altogether about thirty-five new species of Diurnes, nearly as 

 many as I took at Ega in the first three months, but how different are 

 the species from the Ega ones ! Even some genera and families 

 which abound most in Ega have few representatives here, or none ; it 

 is strange that during the whole time I saw not half-a-dozen speci- 

 mens of Papilio ; Heliconias are almost wholly absent ; Ithomia not a 

 single specimen ! nor Leptalis, even the common Leptalis vocula I 

 could not find. The genera Eresia, Cybdelis, Catagramma, and 

 many others also not found, and the Nymphalidae, all very rare. In 

 the Coleoptera, you will see a great number of new species, though 

 small ; the astonishing number of Ibidions in the Longicomes is par- 

 ticularly notable. I do not send any notes this time, and the 

 contents of the boxes remain just as I placed them in the first instance 



