Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/370

 common in the forest; it is the Midas bicolor of Spix, a kind I had not before met with, and peculiar, as far as at present known, to the eastern bank of the Rio Negro. The colour is brown, with the neck and arms white. Like its congeners, it keeps together in small troops, and runs along the main boughs of the loftier trees, climbing perpendicular trunks, but never taking flying leaps. The locality seemed to be a poor one for birds and insects. I do not know how far this apparent scarcity is attributable to the rainy weather which prevailed, and to the unfavourable time of the year. The months spent here (from January to March) I always found to be the best for collecting Coleopterous insects in this climate, but they are not so well for other orders of insects or for birds, which abound most from July to October. The forest was very pleasant for rambling. In some directions broad pathways led down gentle slopes, through what one might fancy were interminable shrubberies of evergreens, to moist hollows where springs of water bubbled up, or shallow brooks ran over their beds of clean white sand. But the most beautiful road was one that ran through the heart of the forest to a waterfall, which the citizens of Barra consider as the chief natural curiosity of their neighbourhood. The waters of one of the larger rivulets which traverse the gloomy wilderness, here fall over a ledge of rock about ten feet high. It is not the cascade itself, but the noiseless solitude, and the marvellous diversity and richness of trees, foliage, and flowers, encircling the water basin, that form the attraction of the place. Families make picnic excursions to this spot; and the