Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/89

 drawn, wailing note of the Inambú, a kind of partridge (Crypturus cinereus?); and, also, in the hollows on the banks of the rivulets, the noisy notes of another bird, which seemed to go in pairs, amongst the tree-tops, calling to each other as they went. These notes resounded through the solitude. Another solitary bird had a most sweet and melancholy song; it consisted simply of a few notes, uttered in a plaintive key, commencing high, and descending by harmonic intervals. It was probably a species of warbler of the genus Trichas. All these notes of birds are very striking and characteristic of the forest.

I afterwards saw reason to modify my opinion, founded on these first impressions, with regard to the amount and variety of animal life in this and other parts of the Amazonian forests. There is, in fact, a great variety of mammals, birds, and reptiles, but they are widely scattered, and all excessively shy of man. The region is so extensive, and uniform in the forest clothing of its surface, that it is only at long intervals that animals are seen in abundance when some particular spot is found which is more attractive than others. Brazil, moreover, is throughout poor in terrestrial mammals, and the species are of small size; they do not, therefore, form a conspicuous feature in its forests. The huntsman would be disappointed who expected to find here flocks of animals similar to the buffalo herds of North America, or the swarms of antelopes and herds of ponderous pachyderms of Southern Africa. The largest and most interesting portion of the Brazilian mammal fauna is arboreal in its habits; this feature of the animal denizens