Page:Through the Brazilian Wilderness by Theodore Roosevelt (1925).djvu/260

 and seemingly healthy place. Doubtless when settlement is sufficiently advanced a remedy will be developed. The geology of this neighborhood was interesting—Oliveira found fossil tree-trunks which he believed to be of cretaceous age.

Here we found Amilcar and Mello, who had waited for us with the rear-guard of their pack-train, and we enjoyed our meeting with the two fine fellows, than whom no military service of any nation could produce more efficient men for this kind of difficult and responsible work. Next morning they mustered their soldiers, muleteers, and pack-ox men and marched off. Reinisch the taxidermist was with them. We followed in the late afternoon, camping after a few miles. We left the ox-cart at Campos Novos; from thence on the trail was only for pack-animals.

In this neighborhood the two naturalists found many birds which we had not hitherto met. The most conspicuous was a huge oriole, the size of a small crow, with a naked face, a black-and-red bill, and gaudily variegated plumage of green, yellow, and chestnut. Very interesting was the false bell-bird, a gray bird with loud, metallic notes. There was also a tiny soft-tailed woodpecker, no larger than a kinglet; a queer humming-bird with a slightly flexible bill; and many species of ant-thrush, tanager, manakin, and tody. Among these unfamiliar forms was a vireo looking much like our solitary vireo. At one camp Cherrie collected a dozen perching birds; Miller a beautiful little rail; and Kermit, with the small Lüger belt-rifle, a handsome curassow, nearly as big as a turkey—out of which, after it had been skinned, the cook made