THE NATURALIST ON THE AMAZONS. 
387 
here very plentiful, grove after grove of these splendid trees being 
visible, towering above their fellows, with the “ woody fruits, large and 
“ round as cannon-balls, dotted over the branches.” The Hyacinthine 
Macaw (Ara hyacinthind) is another natural wonder, first met with 
here. This splendid bird, which is occasionally brought alive to the 
Zoological G-ardens of Europe, “ only occurs in the interior of 
“ Brazil, from 16° S.L. to the southern border of the Amazon valley.” 
Its enormous beak—which must strike even the most unobservant 
with wonder—appears to be adapted to enable it to feed on the nuts 
of the Mucuja Palm (Acrocomia lasiospathd ). “ These nuts, which are 
“ so hard as to be difficult to break with a heavy hammer, are crushed 
“ to a pulp by the powerful beak of this Macaw.” 
Mr. Bates’ second volume is mainly devoted to his residence at 
Santarem, at the junction of the Bio Tapajos with the main stream, 
and to his account of Upper Amazon, or Solimoens—the Fauna of 
which is, as we shall presently see, in many respects very different 
from that of the lower part of the river. At Santarem—“ the most 
“ important and most civilized settlement on the Amazon, between 
“ the Atlantic and Para”—Mr. Bates made his head-quarters for three 
years and half, during which time several excursions up the little- 
known Tapajos were effected. Some seventy miles up the stream, 
on its affluent, the Cupari, a new Fauna, for the most part very dis¬ 
tinct from that of the lower part of the same stream, was entered 
upon. “ At the same time a considerable proportion of the Cupari 
“ species were identical with those of Ega, on the Upper Amazon, 
“ a district eight times further removed than the village just men- 
“ tioned.” Mr. Bates was more successful here than on his excur¬ 
sion up the Tocantins, and obtained twenty new species of fishes, and 
many new and conspicuous insects, apparently peculiar to this part 
of the Amazonian valley. 
In the third chapter of the second volume Mr. Bates commences 
his account of the JSolimoens, or Upper Amazon, on the banks of 
which he passed four years and a half. The country is a “ magnifi- 
“ cent wilderness, where civilized man has, as yet, scarcely obtained a 
“ footing—the cultivated ground, from the Bio Negro to the Andes, 
“ amounting only to a few score acres.” During the whole of this 
time Mr. Bates’ head-quarters were at Ega, on the Teffe, a confluent 
of the great river from the south, whence excursions were made 
sometimes for 300 or 400 miles into the interior. In the intervals 
Mr. Bates followed his pursuit as a collecting Naturalist in the same 
“ peaceful, regular way,” as he might have done in a European vil¬ 
lage. Our author draws a most striking picture of the quiet, secluded 
life he led in this far-distant spot. The difficulty of getting news 
and the want of intellectual society were the great drawbacks—■“ the 
“ latter increasing until it became almost insupportable.” “ I was 
“ obliged at last,” Mr. Bates naively remarks, “to come to the con- 
“ elusion, that the contemplation of nature alone is not sufficient to 
“ fill the human heart and mind.” Mr. Bates must indeed have been 
N. II. R.—1863. 2 D 
