198 



THE LOWER AMAZONS 



tail slightly in a horizontal position and shook its terrible 

 rattle. It was many minutes before I could get the dog 

 away ; and this incident, as well as the one already re- 

 lated, shows how slow the reptile is to make the fatal 

 spring. 



I was much annoyed, and at the same time amused, 

 with the Urubu vultures. The Portuguese call them 

 corvos or crows ; in colour and general appearance, they 

 somewhat resemble rooks, but they are much larger, 

 and have naked, black, wrinkled skin about their face 

 and throat. They assemble in great numbers in the 

 villages about the end of the wet season, and are then 

 ravenous with hunger. My cook could not leave the 

 open kitchen at the back of the house for a moment, 

 whilst the dinner was cooking, on account of their thievish 

 propensities. Some of them were always loitering about, 

 watching their opportunity, and the instant the kitchen 

 was left unguarded, the bold marauders marched in and 

 lifted the lids of the saucepans with their beaks to rob 

 them of their contents. The boys of the village lie in 

 wait and shoot them with bow and arrow ; and vultures 

 have consequently acquired such a dread of these weapons, 

 that they may be often kept off by hanging a bow from 

 the rafters of the kitchen. As the dry season advances, 

 the hosts of Urubus follow the fishermen to the lakes, 

 where they gorge themselves with the offal of the fisheries. 

 Towards February, they return to the villages, and are 

 then not nearly so ravenous as before their summer 

 trips. 



The insects of Villa Nova are, to a great extent, the 

 same as those of Santarem and the Tapajos. A few 

 species of all orders, however, are found here, which 

 occurred nowhere else on the Amazons, besides several 

 others which are properly considered local varieties or 

 races of others found at Para, on the Northern shore of 

 the Amazons or in other parts of Tropical America. The 

 Hymenoptera were especially numerous, as they always 

 are in districts which possess a sandy soil ; but the many 

 interesting facts which I gleaned relative to their habits 

 will be more conveniently introduced when I treat of the 

 same or similar species found in the localities above- 

 named. One of the most conspicuous insects peculiar 

 to Villa Nova is an exceedingly handsome butterfly, 

 which has been named Agrias Phalcidon. It is of large 



