1848.1 



ANIMAL LIFE. 



71 



Immediately on the fish being cut up, every part of it is 

 blackened by thousand of flies, which keep up a continual hum 

 the whole day. In fact, the sound of animal life never ceases. 

 Directly after sunset, the herons, bitterns, and cranes begin 

 their discordant cries, and the boat-bills and frogs set up a 

 dismal croaking. The note of one frog deserves a better 

 name : it is an agreeable whistle, and, could it be brought into 

 civilised society, would doubtless have as many admirers as 

 the singing mouse, or the still more marvellous whistling oyster 

 described by Punch, All night long, the alligators and fish 

 keep up a continual plunging ; but, with the grey of morning, 

 commence the most extraordinary noises. All of a sudden ten 

 thousand white-winged paroquets begin their morning song 

 with such a confusion of piercing shrieks as it is quite im- 

 possible to describe: a hundred knife-grinders at full work 

 would give but a faint idea of it. A little later, and another 

 noise is heard : the flies, which had weighed down every blade 

 of grass, now wake up, and, with a sounding hum, commence 

 their attack upon the fish : every piece that has lain a few 

 hours upon the ground has deposited around it masses of their 

 eggs as large as walnuts. In fact, the abundance of every kind 

 of animal life crowded into a small space was here very striking, 

 compared with the sparing manner in which it is scattered in 

 the virgin forests. It seems to force us to the conclusion, that 

 the luxuriance of tropical vegetation is not favourable to the 

 production and support of animal life. The plains are always 

 more thickly peopled than the forest ; and a temperate zone, 

 as has been pointed out by Mr. Darwin, seems better adapted 

 to the support of large land-animals than the tropics. 



In this lake the overseer informed me he had killed as many 

 as a hundred alligators in a few days, whereas in the Amazon 

 or Para rivers it would be difficult to procure as many in a 

 year. Geologists, judging from the number of large reptiles, 

 the remains of which are found in considerable quantities in 

 certain strata, tell us of a time when the whole world was 

 peopled by such animals, before a sufficient quantity of dry 

 land had been formed to support land quadrupeds. But, as it 

 is evident that the remains of these alligators would be found 

 accumulated together should any revolution of the earth cause 

 their death, it would appear that such descriptions are founded 

 upon insufficient data, and that considerable portions of the 



