1848.1 



BIRDS. 



II 



them very large and handsome. Mosquitoes, in the low parts 

 of the city and on shipboard, are very annoying, but on the 

 higher grounds and in the suburbs there are none. The 

 moqueen, a small red tick, scarcely visible — the " bete rouge " 

 of Cayenne — abounds in the grass, and, getting on the legs, is 

 very irritating ; but these are trifles which one soon gets used 

 to, and in fact would hardly think oneself in the tropics with- 

 out them. 



Of birds we at first saw but few, and those not very remark- 

 able ones. The only brilliant-coloured bird common about 

 the city is the yellow troupial {Cassiciis icteronotus)^ which 

 builds its nests in colonies, suspended from the ends of the 

 branches of trees. A tree is sometimes covered with their 

 long purse-like nests, and the brilliant black and yellow birds 

 flying in and out have a pretty effect. This bird has a variety 

 of loud clear notes, and has an extraordinary power of imitating 

 the song of other birds, so as to render it worthy of the title of 

 the South American mocking-bird. Besides this, the common 

 silver-beak tanager {Rhamphocoelus Jacapa), some pale blue 

 tanagers, called here " Say is," and the yellow-breasted tyrant 

 flycatchers are the only conspicuous birds common in the 

 suburbs of Para. In the forest are constantly heard the curious 

 notes of the bush-shrikes, tooo-too-to-to-t-t-t, each succeeding 

 sound quicker and quicker, like the successive reboundings of 

 a hammer from an anvil. In the dusk of the evening many 

 goat-suckers fly about and utter their singular and melancholy 

 cries. One says " Whip-poor-will," just like the North American 

 bird so called, and another with remarkable distinctness keeps 

 asking, "Who 2iYQyou?^^ and as their voices often alternate, 

 an interesting though rather monotonous conversation takes 

 place between them. 



The climate, so far as we had yet experienced, was delightful. 

 The thermometer did not rise above 87° in the afternoon, nor 

 sink below 74° during the night. The mornings and evenings 

 were most agreeably cool, and we had generally a shower and 

 a fine breeze in the afternoon, which was very refreshing, and 

 purified the air. On moonlight evenings till eight o'clock 

 ladies walk about the streets and suburbs without any head- 

 dress and in ball-room attire, and the Brazilians, in their 

 rosinhas, sit outside their houses bareheaded and in their 

 ^ shirt-sleeves till nine or ten o'clock, quite unmindful of the 



