Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/236

 making arrows and knitting fishing-nets with tucúm twine; others are busy patching up and caulking their canoes, large and small: in fact, preparations are made on all sides for the much longed-for "veraõ," or summer, and the "migration," as it is called, of fish and turtle; that is, their descent from the inaccessible pools in the forest to the main river. Towards the middle of July the sand-banks begin to reappear above the surface of the waters, and with this change come flocks of sandpipers and gulls, which latter make known the advent of the fine season, as the cuckoo does of the European spring; uttering almost incessantly their plaintive cries as they fly about over the shallow waters of sandy shores. Most of the gaily-plumaged birds have now finished moulting, and begin to be more active in the forest.

The fall continues to the middle of October, with the interruption of a partial rise called "repiquet," of a few inches in the midst of very dry weather in September, caused by the swollen contribution of some large affluent higher up the river. The amount of subsidence also varies considerably, but it is never so great as to interrupt navigation by large vessels. The greater it is the more abundant is the season. Every one is prosperous when the waters are low; the shallow bays and pools being then crowded with the concentrated population of fish and turtle. All the people, men, women, and children, leave the villages and spend the few weeks of glorious weather rambling over the vast undulating expanses of sand in the middle of the Solimoens, fishing, hunting, collecting eggs of turtle and plovers,