222 
THE UPPER AMAZONS. 
Chap. III. 
making arrows and knitting fishing-nets with tuctim 
twine ; others are busy patching up and caulking their 
canoes, large and small: in fact, preparations are made 
on all sides for the much longed-for "verao," or summer, 
and the migration," as it is called, of fish and turtle ; 
that is, their descent from the inaccessible pools in the 
forest to the main river. Towards the middle of July the 
sand-banks begin to reappear above the surface of the 
waters, and with this change come flocks of sandpipers, 
and gulls, which latter make known the advent of the 
fine season, as the cuckoo does of the European 
spring ; uttering almost incessantly their plaintive 
cries as they fly about over the shallow waters of 
sandy shores. Most of the gaily-plumaged birds have 
now finished moulting, and begin to be more active in 
the forest. 
The fall continues to the middle of October, with the 
interruption of a partial rise called ^^repiquet," of a 
few inches in the midst of very dry weather in Septem- 
ber, caused by the swollen contribution of some large 
affluent higher up the river. The amount of subsi- 
dence also varies considerably, but it is never so great 
as to interrupt navigation by large vessels. The greater 
it is the more abundant is the season. Every one is 
prosperous when the waters are low ; the shallow bays 
and pools being then crowded with the concentrated 
population of fish and turtle. All the people, men, 
women, and children, leave the villages and spend the few 
weeks of glorious weather rambhng over the vast undu- 
lating expanses of sand in the middle of the Solimoens, 
fishing, hunting, collecting eggs of turtle and plovers. 
