.1848.] 



BLUE MACAWS. 



53 



ander once had a chance at them, but his gun missed fire, and 

 they immediately flew off. Lower down the river they are 

 scarcely ever seen, and never below Baiao, while from this 

 place up they are very abundant. What can be the causes 

 which so exactly limit the range of such a strongly-flying bird ? 

 It appears with the rock, and with this there is no doubt a 

 corresponding change in the fruits on which the birds feed. 



Our Indians seeing a likely place on the beach for turtles' 

 eggs, went on shore in the montaria, and were fortunate 

 enough to find a hundred and twenty-three buried in the sand. 

 They are oily and very savoury, and we had an immense 

 omelet for dinner. The shell is leathery, and the white never 

 coagulates, but is thrown away, and the yolk only eaten. The 

 Indians eat them also raw, mixed with farinha. We dined on 

 the beach, where there was abundance of a plant much resem- 

 bling chamomile. The sands were very hot, so that it was 

 almost impossible to walk over them barefooted. The Indians, 

 in crossing extensive beaches, stop and dig holes in the sand 

 to cool their feet in. We now got on very slowly, having to 

 tack across and across the river, the wind blowing up it, as it 

 always does at this season. 



. Where we stopped for breakfast on the 21st, I shot a very 

 prettily-marked small hawk. Insects were also rather abundant, 

 and we captured some fine Fapilios, and two or three nev/ 

 species of clear-winged Heliconia, Alexander found a bees'- 

 nest in a hole in a tree, and got about two quarts of honey, 

 which when strained was very sweet, but with a hot waxy taste. 

 The comb consists of oval cells of black wax, very irregular in 

 shape and size, and displaying little of the skill of our bees at 

 home. The next night, rather late, we arrived at Jambouassu, 

 the sitio of Senhor Seixus, where we were kindly received, and, 

 about nine o'clock, turned into our redes in his verandah. 



The next morning I walked out to examine the premises. 

 The whole of the forest, for some miles round the house, is a 

 cacao plantation, there being about sixty thousand trees, which 

 have all been planted ; the small trees and brush having been 

 cleared from the forest, but all the seringa and other large 

 forest-trees left for shade, which the cacao requires. The 

 milk from the seringa-trees is collected every morning in 

 large univalve shells, which are stuck with clay to the tree, and 

 a small incision made in the bark above. It is formed into 



