qu*est ce dit of Pitangus and the bright, glancing song 
of Troglodytes rufu lus, like and yet unlike the song of 
our T. aidon. By degrees, also, but very slowly, 
I mastered some of the commoner notes of the rich vocabu¬ 
laries of Ostinop s and Cassicus , 
I was disappointed in the butterflies, for 
although we saw a few fine and striking species in the woods, 
there were no really large or gorgeous ones and the com¬ 
moner kinds were either plainly colored or yellow and so 
nearly like our common small yellow and cabbage butterflies 
that they would not have attracted my attention at home. 
Nor were they at all numerous individually. 
I was also unprepared for the almost total absence 
of insect sounds, both in the woods and fields. 
As the afternoon waned and the sun sank low in the 
west, the birds became more noisy and showed themselves 
more freely. They are far m ore numerous here than they 
ever are with us, except during migration, and in especially 
favored places. They are also, as a rule, tame and less 
suspicious than our birds. Humming birds were very numerous 
but they were so restless and active that it was next to 
impossible to get a good look at one and I identified 
only two or three in all, although their buzzing was almost 
constantly in my ears and scarce a minute passed when one 
or more did not dart across our path. One species at least 
