Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/33

1848.] them very large and handsome. Mosquitoes, in the low parts of the city and on shipboard, are very annoying, but on the higher grounds and in the suburbs there are none. The moqueen, a small red tick, scarcely—visible—the "bête rouge" of Cayenne-abounds in the grass, and, getting on the legs, is very irritating; but these are trifles which one soon gets used to, and in fact would hardly think oneself in the tropics without them.

Of birds we at first saw but few, and those not very remarkable ones. The only brilliant-coloured bird common about the city is the yellow troupial (Cassicus icteronotus), which builds its nests in colonies, suspended from the ends of the branches of trees. A tree is sometimes covered with their long purse-like nests, and the brilliant black and yellow birds flying in and out have a pretty effect. This bird has a variety of loud clear notes, and has an extraordinary power of imitating the song of other birds, so as to render it worthy of the title of the South American mocking-bird. Besides this, the common silver-beak tanager (Rhamphocœlus jacapa), some pale blue tanagers, called here "Sayis," and the yellow-breasted tyrant flycatchers are the only conspicuous birds common in the suburbs of Pará. In the forest are constantly heard the curious notes of the bush-shrikes, tooo-too-to-to-t-t-t, each succeeding. sound quicker and quicker, like the successive reboundings of a hammer from an anvil. In the dusk of the evening many goat-suckers fly about and utter their singular and melancholy Cries. One says "Whip-poor-will," just like the North American bird so called, and another with remarkable distinctness keeps asking, "Who are you?" and as their voices often alternate, an interesting though rather monotonous conversation takes place between them.

The climate, so far as we had yet experienced, was delightful. The thermometer did not rise above 87° in the afternoon, nor sink below 74° during the night. The mornings and evenings were most agreeably cool, and we had generally a shower and a fine breeze in the afternoon, which was very refreshing, and purified' the air. On moonlight evenings till eight o'clock ladies walk about the streets and suburbs without any headdress and in ball-room attire, and the Brazilians, in their rosinhas, sit outside their houses bareheaded and in their shirt-sleeves till nine or ten o'clock, quite unmindful of the