Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/349

 were brought from this river six months previously. The channel was navigable by montarias only in the rainy season; it was now a half-dry watercourse, the mouth lying about eight feet above the present level of the Amazons. The principal mouth of the Urubú lies between this place and Serpa. The river communicates with the lake of Saracá, but I could make out nothing clearly as to its precise geographical relations with that large sheet of water, which is ten or twelve leagues in length and one to two in breadth, and has an old-established Brazilian settlement, called Silves, on its banks.

It was very pleasant to roam in our host's cacaoal. The ground was clear of underwood, the trees were about thirty feet in height, and formed a dense shade. Two species of monkey frequented the trees, and I was told committed great depredations when the fruit was ripe. One of these, the macaco prego (Cebus cirrhifer?), is a most impudent thief; it destroys more than it eats by its random, hasty way of plucking and breaking the fruits, and when about to return to the forest, carries away all it can in its hands or under its arms. The other species, the pretty little Chrysothrix sciureus, contents itself with devouring what it can on the spot. A variety of beautiful insects basked on the foliage where stray gleams of sunlight glanced through the canopy of broad soft-green leaves. Numbers of an elegant, long-legged tiger-beetle (Odontoch eila egregia) ran and flew about over the herbage. It belongs to a sub-genus peculiar to the warmest parts of America, the species of which are found only in the shade of the forest, and are seen quite