80 
VOYAGE UP THE TAPAJOS. 
Chap. IL 
Curua palm tree ; the natives call a place of this kind 
a Pindobal. The rigid, elegantly pinnated leaves, 
twenty feet in length, grow, as I have before described, 
directly out of the ground. I had frequently occasion 
to notice in the virgin forests some one kind of palm, 
growing abundantly in society in one limited tract 
although scarce elsewhere, no difference of soil, alti- 
tude, or humidity being apparent to account for the 
phenomenon. The Pindobal covered an area of pro- 
bably four or five acres, and the whole lay under the 
shade of the tall forest trees. The last half mile of 
our road led through a more humid part of the forest 
near the low shores of the lake. We here saw a 
Couxio monkey (Pithecia sat anas), a large black species 
which, as I have before mentioned, has a thick cap of 
hair on the head parted at the crown. He was seated 
alone on a branch fingering a cluster of flowers that 
lay within his reach. My companion fired at him, but 
missed, and he then slowly moved away. The borders 
of the path were enlivened with troops of small and 
delicate butterflies. I succeeded in capturing, in about 
half an hour, no less than eight species of one genus, 
Mesosemia ; a group remarkable for having the wings 
ornamented with central eye-like spots encircled by fine 
black and gray concentric lines arranged in different 
patterns according to the species. 
I was so much pleased with the situation of this set- 
tlement, and the number of rare birds and insects 
which tenanted the forest, that I revisited it in the 
following year, and spent four months making collec- 
