T ee 
Pee TOUP 
Mt Sa flor sk fet al)? Sage RS SACRE? Se Cems Rae SN ad Ya Wee: = os ee ye oe eet Pe ea Ne Sen ote Oe ty aa To) See ee et em, es oe ee eee Pe ee me 
: ia =e ‘deren anc 
~ Mol 
babies 
1883.) The Naturalist Brazilian Expedition. 481 
ever seen. Itis paler on the back and dark beneath ; seen at a 
little distance the spots resemble half-withered spikes of grass-seed 
mingled with shriveled leaf-blades; beneath and on the wings, 
the markings are nearly perpendicular, simulating stems and 
leaves. Even the shadows under a grass-patch are mimicked 
with marvelous fidelity. The bird, when approached, remains 
perfectly quiet, even allowing one to pass within two or three 
yards of it; and so perfectly is it concealed by its colors that 
We seldom noticed it until startled by its sudden flight, almost 
beneath our feet. 
One day we hired a small boat, with two Portuguese oarsmen, 
to take us to some of the low islands in the river. We found 
that these were covered, in most places, with swampy forest of no 
great height, the trees resembling temperate rather than tropical 
Species; there were no palms. These woods gave us a few good 
insects, and on the shallows near them we found many fresh-water 
lusca—A mpullarias, Anodontas and Unios. In one place we 
ame across a fisherman’s house—a mere shed of grass thatch, 
but serving as shelter for the man and his wife, and four or five 
with the least possible difference of age. One or two clay 
cooking-pots, a coffee-tin, a plate or two and calabashes for water, 
with hides to stretch on the ground for beds, constituted the en- 
__ Mf property of the establishment, yet the inmates seemed happy 
a m and they showed us such hospitality as was in their 
f 
N 
The woman brought us some wild honey, which I grieve 
had strong medicinal properties, at least to our unaccus- 
stomachs. Travelers in Brazil should be very cautious 
‘bout eating the honeys of the native bees; they often act as vio- 
Cn Purgatives and cathartics, and some of them are decidedly 
Poisonous. 
, 
The 
a k man readily consented to fish for me with his cast net, and 
Soon 
- Pecies Pace us quite a little heap of small fishes. Some 
Tide with 
roi tho ” remind one of the old Devonian and Carboniferous 
ee 
Heros and Acara were abundant, as were several Silu- 
thick, bony plates (Chatostomus, Loricaria). These 
though they are not at all closely related to them. They 
Sometimes m all the Brazilian rivers, living on the bottom, and 
- them dry ‘burying themselves in the mud when the waters around 
cept P; they will exist in this way, deprived of water ex- 
_ 3 Moistens the clay around them, for several weeks. 
