Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/76

52 bleached, and though we searched repeatedly we could find no living specimens. The feathers of the blue macaw were lying about the ground where the people had been feasting off their flesh, but we could not succeed in obtaining any specimens.

Every night, while in the upper part of the river, we had-a concert of frogs, which made most extraordinary noises. There are three kinds, which can frequently be all heard at once. One of these makes a noise something like what one would expect a frog to make, namely a dismal croak, but the sounds uttered by the others were like no animal noise that I ever heard before. A distant railway-train approaching, and a blacksmith hammering on his anvil, are what they exactly resemble. They are such true imitations, that when lying half-dozing in the canoe I have often fancied myself at home, hearing the familiar sounds of the approaching mail-train, and the hammering of the boiler-makers at the iron-works. Then we often had the "guarhibas," or howling monkeys, with their terrific noises, the shrill grating whistle of the cicadas and locusts, and the peculiar notes of the suacúras and other aquatic birds; add to these the loud unpleasant hum of the mosquito in your immediate vicinity, and you have a pretty good idea of our nightly concert on the Tocantíns.

On the morning of the 19th, at Panajá, where we had passed the night, I took my gun and went into the forest, but found nothing. I saw, however, an immense silk-cotton-tree, one of the buttresses of which ran out twenty feet from the trunk. On the beach was a pretty yellow Œnothera, which is common all along this part of the river, as well as a small white passion-flower. Mr. Leavens here bought some rubber, and we then roied or sailed on for the rest of the day. In the afternoon I took the montaria, with Isidora, to try and shoot some of the pretty yellow orioles. I killed one, but it stuck in a thick prickly tree, and we were obliged to come away without it. We passed Patos in the afternoon; near it was a tree covered with a mass of bright yellow blossoms, more brilliant than laburnum, and a really gorgeous sight.

The next day we left the land of the blue macaw without a single specimen. From this place to the Falls we had seen them every day, morning and evening, flying high over the river. At almost every house feathers were on the ground, showing that this splendid bird is often shot for food. Alex-