466 The Naturalist Brazilian Expedition. [May, 
ning large animals and boiling and cleaning bones. Our daily 
life was varied only with new excursions, or with those pleasant 
excitements which attend the discovery of some rare species or 
interesting fact. Yet it would be hard to imagine a more agree- 
able existence than that which we led; our house was a real 
home to us, and our warm-hearted German neighbors became 
fast friends ; in the end we were very sorry to leave them. 
The country around São Joao is properly a forest region, but 
this varies much in its characters. On the hillsides it is very 
heavy, averaging eighty feet in height; the trees and plants, in 
the main, are of the same species as those found at Rio de Ja- 
neiro and in the Brazilian coast range. I noticed only two kinds 
of palms (a Cocos ? and a large, spiny Bactris, the latter growing 
only in swampy places) ; woody climbers are numerous, and there 
is much underbrush. Ravines and water-courses are so matted 
over with bushes and vines that one may often walk on top of the 
vegetation, several feet above the ground. 
The river shores and higher portions of the flood-plain have à 
vegetation which resembles that of the hillsides, but many of the 
trees are of different species, and they are generally more sprea™ 
ing in their growth, the branches being covered with parasites 
and trailing lichens; there is comparatively little undergrowtt 
and one may walk readily almost anywhere without cutting @ 
path. Probably this paucity of smaller plants is owing " she 
periodical floods, which are unfavorable to them. Most of 
herbs which cover the ground in such places are annuals. ee 
A third kind of forest is the fachina/, or “ faggot-woods, z its 
on dry, sandy soil, generally rather low land, but above the il 
of the highest floods. It is composed of low, gnarled sf 
either a continuous wood or forming clumps in open gr cde 
They are tangled but not dense, and the ground beneath eee 
ered with grass and dry ferns. Nearly all the plants of the ‘ 
fachinal are distinct from those of the hillsides and alluvial 
and where the fachinal adjoins other,forest the limits are arn 
well marked. In their general features these low woods the coast : 
me of those seen in the interior of Brazil, back of ons of ; 
range; probably they may be considered as outlying a 
the latter. dows 
Lower parts of the alluvial plain are occupied si excellent 
which are often swampy or half flooded; they for™ o 
