6158 



Natural-History Collectors. 



Proceedings of Natural-History Collectors in Foreign Countries, 



Mr. Louis Fraser's Expedition to Ecuador and Peru. 



Mr. Erasers letters, containing the account of his journey from 

 Cuen^a to Gualaquiza, have miscarried. The following are extracts 

 from subsequent letters: — 



" Gualaquiza, Eebruary 13, 1858. 

 " I have been to Zamora for a fortnight, — you will find it marked in 

 the map, I got a few additional things, but no novelties. The in- 

 sects stung my feet to such a fearful extent that they produced twenty- 

 four sores, and I was compelled to return here, since when I have 

 been trying to cure them and am still confined to the house. All the 

 whites here (four in number) are suffering more or less from these ento- 

 mological sores. It has rained more or less every day since I left 

 Guayaquil, although they call it the dry season, and I have great diflS- 

 culty in keeping what I have collected. As for drying them, that is 

 quite out of the question, and after skinning and preserving my small 

 quadrupeds, I have been obliged to put them into spirits to save 

 them. 



" I have altogether about 200 skins, some breast-bones and a 

 skeleton of Daptrius, skulls of tapir and white-lipped peccary, some 

 six canisters of things in spirits, some Lepidoptera, a very few shells, 

 two orchids and a bulb, which I will try to dry in some oven in 

 Cuenga. I hope and trust that my collection, which I left in Cuenga, 

 has not suffered. 



" On the road to this place 1 saw beautiful specimens of the Peru- 

 vian cock-of-the-rock {JRassicola Peruviana) : it is called by the Ecua- 

 dorians ' Gallo de montana.' Why it should be called ' cock of the 

 rock' I know not, as it frequents the forests of the mountains: its 

 cry is like the creaking of a signboard before a country inn, moved 

 by the wind, and is compared here to that of a young monkey. 



" Crossing the river Rosario, on the 14th of December, was an awful 

 job : the river rising very rapidly, we had to walk on two very slender 

 limbs of trees, which sprang considerably, the balustrades consisting 

 of ropes held by boys on either side, forming anything but a pleasant 

 or safe mode of transit: although it is only about six feet above the 

 water, should a person fall in there would be but a very slight chance 

 of his escaping alive. Tt is a mountain torrent, and the fragile bridge 

 is laid over betw^een four falls, of some six fet^t each : it is about 



