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51 
of distant bird voices, and approaching behold the'trees, 
the undergrowth and the ground beneath fairly alive with 
birds — woodpeckers and nuthatches hammering on the 
trunks and^arge branches, titmice hanging head down- 
ward from the lower twigs, and warblers of every des- 
cription mingling promiscuously together, chasing one 
another through the leaves, lisping, chirping and twit- 
tering with all varieties of intonation and every expres- 
sion of sentiment. :^Hundreds there are together and we 
recognize in the busy throng many familiar and not a 
few rare species. Among the latter the bird we are in 
search of. There he is, flitting silent and thrush-like 
through the bushes; now he chirps sharply and an ans- 
wering cry comes from various parts of the thicket. 
His olive back is the same as when last we saw him, but 
the ash and black of the throat and breast are replaced by 
a rich, warm yellow, which spreads over the entire un- 
der parts.* He has become^ rather more social in his 
habits, but is now even more shy and retiring than in 
June. * * * Another week passes, 
the nights have become cool, almost frosty, and to-day 
we may search the wood edges in vain for our little 
friend; he is gone with many others of his tribe, and 
the nuthatches, titmice, and woodpeckers, with a few 
warblers of the more hardy species, now have the 
woods to themselves. The ferns are fast turning brown 
and a few of the maples have already put on their scar- 
let livery. The loon still laughs on the lake, and as we 
wend our way homeward along its shore, a long line of 
ducks — perhaps offspring of the very birds we saw in 
June — shoot darkly across the rosy sunset hues in the 
West to be lost the next moment in the gloom of the 
forest beyond. 
To-morrow the sportsman’s season will begin and we 
may lay aside the scalpel and collecting basket, for the 
game bag and leather legging. “ Shot” whines expec- 
tantly from his kennel and who can say that he is not 
thinking of the long joyous time before him. Butalas! 
that season is of the past, not the future, and the sleet 
and hail rattling against my window,pane, w akt« me, 
that many long days must elapse, ’ere we can welcome 
once more the glorious Autumn. 
♦This ie, etrickly speaking, the aatumnal plumage of the young 
bird. The adult male retains his nuptial plumage throughout the 
year. 
REC0LLECT10\S OF MARAJO ISLAIND. 
BY CHARLES LLNDEN. 
[Concluded.] 
habitat. The common English snipe is also very abun- 
dant wherever miry marshes afford it shelter and food. 
Neither are the larger and more showy varieties lacking, 
which are represented by the tall jabura, wood ibis, 
roseate spoonbill, and the guara or purple ibis . I rarely 
succeeded, however, to get within gun-shot range of 
these curious and beautiful birds, as they are extremely 
shy. My light tint of clothing proved the main stum- 
bling block, and I had to rely in general upon my coffee- 
colored guides foi a supply of specimens. 
The most annoying vexation I suffered in this respect 
was from the gorgeous purple ibis which abounded, 
sometimes within gunshot of the estancia, in flocks of 
from five to over one hundred. There is no protecting 
cover of any kind on these campos whenever they slope 
slowly and become lakes or marshes, and it is impossible 
to approach these birds which have learned long ago to 
dread the appearance’of evil-boding man. The difflculty 
increases, also, from their being gregarious.|[I saw at a 
glance what the lacking article of my outfit was, but 
had no means of remedying the defect. What is 
needed to make a good bag of these beautiful and val- 
uable specimens, is a near fac simile of a cow, paint- 
ed and stretched with light supports upon canvas 
The hunter could fasten this device to his arm, and 
move ahead in a sideway motion, as it were, and kill 
with his two barrels a dozen or a score of these birds. 
They are not in the least afraid of the half wild cattle 
which graze about them in most tantalizing proximity, 
but theseJcannot.be pressed into service to act as live 
blinds, as they are too shy. If we reflect that the wings 
alone of full plumaged males command the price of 
five dollars in the feather market of Rio Janeiro, we 
will perceive that a party, which could average at least 
25 birds daily, 'through use of ’ such improvements, 
might pay the entire expense of such a journey in a few 
weeks. There were a few favored localities within a 
couple of days ride from my quarters, where these 
birds breed, and could be obtained without any expe- 
dients. It is possible that our wholesale dealers in 
feathers from foreign countries rely for their supply 
upon a few such retired, out of the way nooks, as it fell 
to my share to visit. These people preserve, generally, 
such an amount of myst rious reticence, when asked a 
few pertinent questions, that the obtaining of any in- 
formation from SUCH greedy harpies becomes a hopeless 
task. 
Tropical regions are in bad repute on account of ven- 
omous snakes, which the far off reader suppo.ses their 
mo.H noxious feature, i his may be true to some extent 
of certain restricted localities, but large poisonous 
snakes are, on an average, rather scarce. I have seen 
far more of them in Southern Florida, during a former 
journey, than an ywher e in Brazil. iVe must reflect, in 
order to give due weight to this rather strange sounding 
statement, that the habits of most poisonous snakes are 
the same'the world over. The rattlesnake’ of North 
America prefers the sunny, rocky sides of low moun- 
tain'ranges, and does not run to any appreciable extent 
iu shady swamps. It is true that the venom of all 
poisonous snakes is of a more deadly character in very 
hot regions, on account of the increased vital force of 
these reptiles, and their secretions aie thus of a more 
intensely acrid character, but the actual loss of life re- 
sulting from their bites is extremely small. I never 
heard of a single instance during my stay in Brazil. 
The remedy in common use, when it can be readily pro- 
cured, is common whiskey or the caoaoa manufactured 
from sugar-cane, which is to be had in abundance where- 
ever there are settlements. It is a sing'ilar fact that 
a man bitten by a snake needs a large quantity of this 
rum to become intoxicated, perhaps five times as much 
as under ordinary circumstances, and that on recovery 
from his stupor he escapes thereby all ill consequences. 
My short stay afforded but scanty opportunities to be- 
come acquainted with the several poisonous species iu- 
aigenous to the lower Amazon. I never saw but one 
specimen, the much dreaded sucuruju probably a va- 
riety of the well known crotal-us hoiridm This snake 
looks like our own rattlesnake but it differs from it 
slightly on account of the rather flattened shape of its 
body aud its fangs which are fully as long as those of 
the large sized crotalus adamanteus oi Southern Florida. 
Its greatest enemy is, as with us, the common domes- 
tic pig, and as these are raised in abundance in all settle- 
ments, there is but little danger to be apprehended. 
AJIarge black sn ke, closely allied to our own, is 
more common, but entirely harmless. 1 .It is said how- 
ever, that among these harmless snakes the sucuruju 
attains here often to such an enormous size, as render it 
a terror to all of the natives. This snake is known 
here also by the name of water boa, and resembles 
somewhat its dry land congener in coloring. The scales 
are more closely overlapping and give this interesting 
reptile a very glossy appearance, indicating to the natu- 
ralist at a glance its habits. I never had the good for- 
tune to meet w th a full grow’n specimen of this very 
imperfectly known animal, but saw on one occasion a 
young one, coiled up on a little knoll of dry land, bor- 
dering on one of the branches of the Amazon. Al- 
though I tried to disturb it from its comfortable repose 
by throwing at it sticks and chips of wood, it made no 
effort to stir, and as I did not wish to waste ammunition, 
I contented myself with a close view from my boat. 
I calculated its length to be about twelve feet, its head 
was rather small, there was" otherwise a resemblance to 
the common boa in color aud in the irregular distribution 
of large dark brown patches upon the light dusky 
skin. Where others would heave a sigh of relief, I 
must confess to disappointment occasioned by positive 
scarcity o'^snakes by which I had hoped to swell con- 
siderably the bulk of my alcoholic collections. All the 
general traveler needs for personal protection is a goodly 
sized flask, alw'ays well filled with something stronger 
than water, which may be utilized at all events, though 
not perhaps in such great quantities to meet extraordin- 
ary occasions. 
The quantity of liquor anybody may consume in these 
hot regions without feeling its effects is ye y astonish- 
ing to the northern visitor. Neither do I believe that 
any injurious effects arise from this now general ad- 
diction to this national beverage, cagaga. I became 
acquainted, while in Santarem, with an Englishman, as 
heartily florid looking an old gentleman as anybody 
may single out from the healthful patterns of the most 
salubrious English districts. This man has ever been a 
physiological puzzle to me, since, according to the tes- 
timony of all residents of Santarem, he had never 
been known in sober condition after 12 o’clock m. If 
we add that this I ule had been extended through a pe- 
riod of over thirty j'ears, the time of . his sojourn, and 
in a climate where all excesses of this kind are said to 
be deadly, we woula almost feel disposed to cast whole- 
sale doubt on the most anthoritative medical axioms. 
I believe myself, that one of the mj'steries of acclimi- 
tization consists in gradual acquisition of these habits, 
indulged in instinctively by all of the natives. I suf- 
fered seriously on my arrival from digestive complaints 
which soon became ageravated by exposure, and cul- 
minated occasionally into severe attacks of intermittent 
fevers. None of m> medical preparations' afforded re- 
lief, and I am convinced that I owed my final recovery 
to the advice of an old American resident, in virtue of 
which I gradually onformed myself to this new way 
of battling with disease. The evaporation of the skin 
is here excessive, and a quantity of this new rum, half 
of which wmuld have ordinarily caused me to reel, 
never produced any appreciable consequences. This 
accounts, perhaps, for the general sober.^ demeanor of 
the natives, who drink, on the average, five times as 
much as the inhabitants of Norway and Sweden. 
The Cagaga is distilled from the fresh juice of sugar 
cane, and commands the low price of a dollar per gallon. 
The most of it is manufactured in the neighborhood of 
Para, whence it is shipped to all parts of the interior. 
I saw on several occasions w'hole cargoes of it carried 
b}' the Amazonian steamers to the far back settlements 
of the Tapajos, where the largest villages do not num- 
ber above twenty houses. It was and is to me a mys- 
tery still, how so few people ever disposed of such 
enormous quantities. ’ Since all of the juice of^the 
sugar cane is thus utilized in alcoholization, sugar itself 
becomes scarce and inferior qualities of it cost actually 
more than anywhere within the populous districts of 
the United States. Thus the strange anomaly intrudes 
upon the observation, that in a country where the veg- 
etable exuberance is so great that by its very excess the 
cane shoots up to such an enormous size, as to deprive 
the stalk of its circulating fluids, sugar itself is not as 
much a staple article of national consumption as in the 
far way north, where busy hands carry the raw material 
into huge refineries. The whole population is either 
steeped in the mania of the India rubber trade, or de- 
vote themselves as in Marajo and alt other Campo re- 
gions to the herding of cattle. Both of these occupa- 
tions require no steady devotion or application to bus- 
iness, which is so|characteristic of northern races. A 
man can gather two dollars worth of India rubber du- 
ring the season in less than four hours, and idle away 
the rest of the time in his hammock listening to the 
sickening drawling strains of some Portuguese ditty on 
the guitar, and the ranchero becomes infatuated with a 
life, where contrasts of danger andisecurity, ease and 
violent exertion afford a never failing source of purely 
animal enjoyment. It is possible that in consideration 
of future social and physical contingencies, the Amazon 
river may become the home of generations to come. 
But the time must be plaeed far ahead. There are 
beautifully rolling fruitful districts on manj' of the con- 
fluents of the Amazon, where millions of men could 
find a far more produetive soil, than on the barren cold 
heath'and mountain regions of northern Europe, where 
people are so thickly clustered; but it is questionable, if 
the very equability of the climate, the natural pos- 
sibilities attending all agricultural pursuits and the gen- 
eral equilibrium of ph 3 'siological operations are notjin 
themselves detrimental to the activity of the mind 
which in the long run influences and promotes bodily 
development. It is strange to view the decaj’of many 
of the most powerful races of the present and past, 
without any other apparent cause than a stagnation of 
the cerebral functions. _ Our North American Indians 
are certainly not lacking in vigorous bodily frame. A 
beneficent government has surrounded them with all pro- 
visions whereby they may prolong their national life, 
yet they dwindle down, and although not exterminuted 
by superior races or disease, will soon number among 
the things of the past. The same fate awaits the in- 
habitants of tropical America, Surrounded b}' an 
earthlj' paradise, they do not increase correspondingly, 
although otherwise perfect in well developed bodilj' 
frames. Their cities do not grow, they owe their statis- 
tical increase of population to the fresh influx of for- 
eign immigration, which possesses all the necessaiy ele- 
ments of vitality, to resist for a while, the pernicious 
influences of a life free from all struggles in maintain- 
ing a footing, all anxieties from reverses, but also the 
enjoyment derived from the beauty of varying seasons 
and the intellectual communion with S3’mpathetic fel- 
low man. Not until wants arise, of which we are at 
present utterh' unconscious, whicii to satisfy will strain 
our brain in it's healthy play of waste and repair may we 
hope to see expectations realized, which the inhabi- 
tants of tropical latitudes indulge in. There will, for 
a long time to come, be no desire to change our pleas- 
ant homes on hill sides and valleys for the dreamy dolce 
far nienU life in the land of the banana and the palm. 
