THE PAXIUBA PALM. 
289 
1851.] 
In a hollow near a small stream that crossed the path 
I found growing the singular palm called “ Paxiuba bar- 
riguda” (the big-bellied paxiuba). It is a fine, tall^ 
rather slender tree, with a head of very elegant curled 
leaves. At the base of the stem is a conical mass of 
air-roots, five or six feet high, more or less developed in 
all the species of this genus. But the peculiar character 
from which it derives its name is, that the stem at rather 
more than half-way up swells suddenly out to double 
its former thickness or more, and after a short distance 
again contracts, and continues cylindrical to the top. It 
is only by seeing great numbers of these trees, all with 
this character more or less palpable, that one can be- 
lieve it is not an accidental circumstance in the indivi- 
dual tree, instead of being truly characteristic of the 
species. It is the Iriartea ventricosa of Martius. 
I tried here to procure some hunters and fishermen, 
but was not very successful. I had a few fish 
brought me, and now and then a bird. A curious bird, 
called anambe, was fiying in fiocks about the pupunha 
palms, and after much trouble I succeeded in shooting 
one, and it proved, as I had anticipated, quite different 
from the Gymmderus mdicollis, which is a species 
mueh resembling it in its flight, and common in all the 
Rio Negro. I went after them several times, but could 
not succeed in shooting another ; for though they take 
but short flights, they remain at rest scarcely an instant. 
About the houses here were several trumpeters, curassow- 
birds, and those beautiful parrots, the anacas {Derotypm 
accipitrinus), which all wander and fly about at perfect 
liberty, but being bred from the nest, always return to 
u 
