8538 



Notices of New Boohs. 



The very name of the Amazons, that monarch of rivers, conveys an 

 idea of vastness that can scarcely be enhanced by' descriptions, its 

 course extending with its tributaries to more than 10,000 miles ; its 

 breadth so great that from the centre of the stream the shores are 

 invisible ; the volume of fresh water it pours into the Atlantic so 

 immense as to conquer, overcome and annihilate the saltness of the 

 ocean, — are facts taught us even in our school days, and once taught 

 us are never to be forgotten. Now we have superadded to all this a 

 picture of its banks, verdure descending to the water's edge, and 

 ascending like a living wall two hundred feet above the stream. There 

 is something oppressive in the idea of such a stream and such a forest, 

 something quite as calculated to deter as to invite the traveller ; in 

 short, it seems a subject too immense, too boundless, too infinite shall 

 I say, for us to grapple with. There are other features of this scene 

 no less wonderful than its vastness : far more impressive to my mind 

 than any computation of the millions of square miles now in the sole 

 occupation of Nature as virgin forestry, is the power of Nature to 

 reclaim her own when robbed by man. At Para, for instance, man 

 prevailed for a time, conquered the forest by great efforts, little by 

 little, cleared spaces, marked out roads, squares and gardens, and built 

 houses and churches and market-places; but at this point he quarrelled 

 with himself, had rows and revolutions, and weakened himself and 

 rendered himself incapable of further exertion ; then Nature came 

 leaping down upon him with her utmost power, blocked up the squares 

 with superb bananas, covered the market place with forest, and shouted 

 a loud triumphant " ha ! ha ! " in the hootings of unnumbered frogs 

 and in the howlings of the monkeys, which make the very blood run 

 cold. Now peace and commerce have returned ; the plethora, the 

 exuberance of life is again being driven back ; and the sounds of music, 

 the ringing of bells, the voices of men are again heard. 



But I have ever felt, and still feel, that the only way to treat an 

 author with perfect fairness is to let him speak for himself, and if the 

 passages which I have selected are only as interesting to others as they 

 have been to me, the readers of the ' Zoologist ' will enjoy the pages 

 that follow. I take them with the same disregard to classification 

 which the author has himself shown, seeing no necessity for arrange- 

 ment where the sights and sounds are so diversified and the objects 

 of attraction so numerous. 



The Japim. — " Another interesting and common bird was the japim, 

 a species of Cassicus (C. icteronotus). It belongs to the same family 

 of birds as our starling, magpie and rook. It has a rich yellow and 



