Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/43

 About the month of April, when the water rises to this level, the trees are covered with blossom, and a handsome orchid, an Epidendron with large white flowers, which clothes thickly the trunks, is profusely in bloom. Several kinds of kingfisher resort to the place: four species may be seen within a small space: the largest as big as a crow, of a mottled-grey hue, and with an enormous beak; the smallest not larger than a sparrow. The large one makes its nest in clay cliffs, three or four miles distant from this place. None of the kingfishers are so brilliant in colour as our English species. The blossoms on the trees attract two or three species of humming-birds, the most conspicuous of which is a large swallow-tailed kind (Eupetomena macroura), with a brilliant livery of emerald green and steel blue. I noticed that it did not remain so long poised in the air before the flowers as the other smaller species; it perched more frequently, and sometimes darted after small insects on the wing. Emerging from the grove there is a long stretch of sandy beach; the land is high and rocky, and the belt of wood which skirts the river banks is much broader than it is elsewhere. At length, after rounding a projecting bluff, the bay of Mapirí is reached. The river view is characteristic of the Tapajos: the shores are wooded, and on the opposite side is a line of clay cliffs, with hills in the background clothed with rolling forest. A long spit of sand extends into mid-river, beyond which is an immense expanse of dark water, the further shore of the Tapajos being barely visible as a thin grey line of trees on the horizon. The transparency of air and water in the dry season when the