Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/94

 Curuá palm tree; the natives call a place of this kind a Pindobál. The rigid, elegantly pinnated leaves, twenty feet in length, grow, as I have before described, directly out of the ground. I had frequently occasion to notice in the virgin forests some one kind of palm, growing abundantly in society in one limited tract although scarce elsewhere, no difference of soil, altitude, or humidity being apparent to account for the phenomenon. The Pindobál covered an area of probably four or five acres, and the whole lay under the shade of the tall forest trees. The last half mile of our road led through a more humid part of the forest near the low shores of the lake. We here saw a Couxio monkey (Pithecia satanas), a large black species which, as I have before mentioned, has a thick cap of hair on the head parted at the crown. He was seated alone on a branch fingering a cluster of flowers that lay within his reach. My companion fired at him, but missed, and he then slowly moved away. The borders of the path were enlivened with troops of small and delicate butterflies. I succeeded in capturing, in about half an hour, no less than eight species of one genus, Mesosemia; a group remarkable for having the wings ornamented with central eye-like spots encircled by fine black and gray concentric lines arranged in different patterns according to the species.

I was so much pleased with the situation of this settlement, and the number of rare birds and insects which tenanted the forest, that I revisited it in the following year, and spent four months making collec-