A DAY'S HUNT 



423 



the animal nearly perfect) embedded in the sand : they 

 reminded me of the remains of Ichthyosauri fossilised 

 in beds of lias, with the difference of being buried in 

 fine sand instead of in blue mud. I marked the place 

 of one which had a well-preserved skull, and the next 

 day returned to secure it. The specimen is now in the 

 British Museum collection. There were also many foot- 

 marks of Jaguars on the sand. 



We entered the forest, as the sun peeped over the 

 tree-tops far away down river. The party soon after 

 divided ; I keeping with a section which was led by 

 Bento, the Ega carpenter, a capital woodsman. After a 

 short walk we struck the banks of a beautiful little lake, 

 having grassy margins and clear dark water, on the 

 surface of which floated thick beds of water-lilies. We 

 then crossed a muddy creek or watercourse that entered 

 the lake, and then found ourselves on a resting a, or 

 tongue of land between two waters. By keeping in sight 

 of one or the other of these there was no danger of our 

 losing our way : all other precautions were therefore 

 unnecessary. The forest was tolerably clear of under- 

 wood, and consequently easy to walk through. We had 

 not gone far before a soft, long-drawn whistle was heard 

 aloft in the trees, betraying the presence of Mutums 

 (Curassow birds). The crowns of the trees, a hundred 

 feet or more over our heads, were so closely interwoven, 

 that it was difficult to distinguish the birds : the prac- 

 tised eye of Bento, however, made them out, and a fine 

 male was shot from the flock ; the rest flying away and 

 alighting at no great distance : the species was the one 

 of which the male has a round red ball on its beak (Crax 

 globicera). The pursuit of the others led us a great 

 distance, straight towards the interior of the island, in 

 which direction we marched for three hours, having the 

 lake always on our right. 



Arriving at length at the head of the lake, Bento struck 

 off to the left across the restinga, and we then soon came 

 upon a treeless space choked up with tall grass, which 

 appeared to be the dried-up bed of another lake. Our 

 leader was obliged to climb a tree to ascertain our position, 

 and found that the clear space was part of the creek, 

 whose mouth we had crossed lower down. The banks 

 were clothed with low trees, nearly all of one species, a 

 kind of araga (Psidium), and the ground was carpeted 



