TO CAPE FRIO. 



47 



or running about. We saw large quantities of cattle grazing in these 

 pastures, and numbers of the shining violet oriole were walking among 

 them. Our mules were now so well broke in, that I could fire without 

 alighting. Besides the orioles, of which I killed several, razor-billed 

 blackbirds were equally numerous, sitting on the hedges and fields; 

 these were by no means shy, so that we could ride almost close to them. 



In the evening we arrived at the village or Jregucsia of Marica, on 

 the lake of the same name ; the population of this parish is about eight 

 hundred in number. The inhabitants of a house lying rather detached, 

 at which we stopped, carefully shut their doors. All the neighbours 

 immediately assembled to stare at us ; but when we began to skin and 

 prepare the animals which we had killed during the day, old and young- 

 shook their heads, and all laughed aloud at the ridiculous strangers. 

 Our double-barrelled guns seemed to interest them still more than 

 ourselves. The lake Marica, near which we halted a day in order to 

 explore its sandy environs, is about six leagues in circumference. 

 The banks are low and marshy, and it abounds in fish. I saw a kind 

 of shad f silurus ) caught here ; there seem to be numerous species of 

 this genus in the waters of the east coast of Brazil. On the banks of 

 the lake we found some shells, but only of a very common kind ; and 

 in the neighbouring marshes a land or marsh-snail, which I shall have 

 occasion to notice in another place. The birds we found on the shores 

 were a kind of gulls, very like our black-headed gull, with ash-grey 

 head, red bill, and feet of the same colour ; a beautiful kind of tern, 

 or sea swallow, lapwings, plovers, and the uruhiis (cormorant), ho- 

 vered over the marshes. It was here that I first had the pleasure of 

 killing the acabiray, or carrion vulture, which Azara alone has hi- 

 therto rightly distinguished : at first sight it resembles the grey- 

 headed urubu, yet on a closer examination, or even when flying at a 

 considerable height, it may be known from the other. These vul- 

 tures are a benefit conferred by nature on all hot countries ; for they 



