44 
TACIIAREMBO. 
(Communicated October 6tli, 1903, by A. F. BAYNE.) 
Easter has once more passed and I have again enjoyed a brief 
holiday, but this year, instead of travelling westward to the Cordillera, 
I turned to the east, crossing the river to the Banda Oriental, a land of 
rolling meadows, and of hills and streams, and in complete contrast to 
the flat “ pampas ” of the Argentine Republic. So far as entomology 
is concerned, however, the opportunities, unfortunately, were few, for 
a short half-hour’s sunshine was all that fortune favoured us with. 
Tacuarembo, or San Fructuoso, as it is called on many maps, is 
quite a large town, as townS go in Uruguay, situated upon a slight 
elevation on the banks of a small river. There are many high hills 
within a short distance, the majority of these being of a strange shape 
common in the district, and extending, I believe, over the Southern 
portion of Brazil. Viewed from the lower levels their formation 
consists of an apparently flat table-land, at the top, parallel with the 
horizon, and at either extremity, the mountain breaks off almost at 
right angles to this outline. This perpendicular descent, however, does 
not extend more than about one-third of the height, when the slope 
changes abruptly to an easier gradient running down to the plain. 
Both ends of the hill are symmetrical, and a homely illustration of 
them would be a rectangular box placed on a mound of loose earth or 
sand. A similar formation is to be seen here in the neighbourhood of 
Hinojo and Balcarce. Numerous streams, fringed with trees and 
strongly reminiscent of the brook at Matley, cross the country, and 
there is a great deal of fenny land covered with rushes, long grass, and 
aromatic herbs. We left the railway station at 8 o’clock in the 
morning in a coach with three horses, passing the river Tacuarembo 
chico (little Tacuarembo) in a boat as the stream was too deep for the 
trap when loaded, and a delay of twenty minutes was involved there 
as it was necessary previously for the ferry-man to bale the craft out 
and caulk her with mud. The “ boat ” was constructed of the packing 
cases in which oil comes from the States, and the oars were merely 
short poles with pieces of flat board nailed to the ends. After travel¬ 
ling for some miles over low hills and crossing, perhaps, half a dozen 
or more small brooks, we reached our destination, the “grata” (grotto) 
of Tacuarembo. The “grata” is a deep glen with a clear stream 
running through it: on the side where we entered the approach is 
easy, but on the other it is overlooked by precipitous rocks (probably 
gneiss) bearing a striking resemblance to an ancient castle of which 
the lower portions remain intact, whilst the upper have fallen into the 
gorge below. These castellated rocks are quite a distinctive feature in 
the scenery of the surrounding neighbourhood. 
The sides of the hill near the “ grata ” are covered with grass 
waist high, but within the glen the scene is totally different, for it is 
filled with a mass of tangled vegetation. The larger trees are the 
finest I have seen growing naturally in this part of the world, and 
many of them are covered with “ horses tails,” a form of parasitical 
trailing plant several feet long. But these are outnubered by the tree- 
ferns, some with trunks as thick or thicker than a man’s body, and 
crowned with a plume closely resembling the common wood ferns of 
