48 
THE ORCHID WORLD. 
The Naturalist on the River Amazon. A 
Record of Adventures, Habits of Animals, 
Sketches of Brazilian and Indian Life, 
and Aspects of Nature under the Equator, 
during Eleven Years of Travel. By 
Henry Walter Bates, F.R.S. (John 
Murray, 1910, is. net.) 
Those who grow tropical orchids have often 
wondered what theii' native home iis like, under 
what natural conditions do they grow, and 
does the orchid collector have many difficulties 
to encounter when searching for the plants ? 
The author of this work seems to have had 
an interesting though exciting time during his 
eleven years of travel ; his description of the 
country, the modes of travelling, and the man^ 
ners and customs of the inhabitants, together 
with his experience in dealing with, the many 
obnoxious animals and insects, will infuse in 
the reader's mind an increased admiration for 
his audacity. 
Speaking of lizards, he says : " They are 
sure to attract the attention of the new-comer 
from Northern Europe. They are unpleasant- 
looking animals, and can walk or run across 
a smooth ceiling with their backs downward ; 
sometimes they are found with forked tails, 
which snap off on receiving a slight rap." 
" We were amazed at seeing ants an inch 
and a quarter in length, and stout in propor- 
tion, marching in single file through the 
thicket. We tried to exterminate them by 
killing them with our wooden clogs. It was 
impossible, however, to prevent fresh hosts 
coming in as fast as we killed their com- 
panions ; I was obliged to lay trains of gun- 
powder along their line and blow them wp. 
There is also a smaller species, which seems 
to attack persons out of sheer malice : if we 
stood for a few minutes we were sure to be 
attacked, for the moment an ant touched the 
flesh he secured himself with his jaws, doubled 
in his tail, and stung with all his might." 
" The first few nights at Crippi I was much 
troubled by bats ; the place where I slept had 
not been used for many months. I was 
aroused about midnight by the rushing noise 
made by vast hosts of bats sweeping about 
the room. The air was alive with them ; 
they had put out the lamp, and when I re- 
lighted it the place appeared blackened with 
the impish multitudes that were whirling 
round and round. After I had laid about well 
with a stick for a few minutes they disap- 
peared amongst the tiles, but when all was 
still again they returned, and once more 
extinguished the light." 
The book abounds with such tales as these, 
and of encounters with scarlet-faced monkeys, 
hairy spiders five inches in expanse, crowds 
of huge toads, and night adventures with 
alligators. 
The food supply is very different to what 
we are accustomed to : there are no dairies, 
for the cow-tree produces a copious supply 
of milk as pleasant to drink as that of the 
cow. " We tasted some whicii was drawn 
from dry logs that had been standing many 
days in the hot sun ; it soon thickens to a thick 
glue, which is excessively tenacious, and is 
often used to cement broken crockery. I was 
told it was not safe to drink much of it, for 
a slave had recently nearly lost his life through 
taking it too freely." 
In one place there was nothing to be had 
but turtles. " I became so sick of turtle in 
the course of two years that I could not bear 
the smell of it, although at the same time 
nothing else was to be had and I was suffering 
actual hunger. The native women cook it in 
different ways. The entrails are chopped up 
and made into delicious soup, which is gener- 
ally boiled in the concave upper shell of the 
animal, used as a kettle. Large sausages are 
made of the thick-coated stomach, which is 
filled with mincemeat and boiled." 
In one season of the year it is the custom 
for the vilk gers to turn out and collect turtles' 
eggs for the extraction of. the oil which they 
contain, and Bates estimates that more than 
48,000,000 eggs are annually destroyed. The 
universal opinion of the settlers . on the LIpper 
Amazon is that the turtle has very greatly 
decreased in numbers, and is still annually 
decreasing. 
. We have abstracted enough to prove 
that Bates was keenly interested in all 
that he saw. and we are pleased to find a 
cheap edition of this well-known book, which 
consists of. 394. pages, with 39 illustrations. 
It is well worth reading as an example of the 
difficulties an orchid collector might expect to 
meet with when travelling m search of these 
beautiful flowers. 
