-
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 bellbird, 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 Luger belt-rifle, a handsome curassow, nearly
as big as a turkey--out of which, after it had been skinned, the cook
made a delicious canja, the thick Brazilian soup of fowl and rice than
which there is nothing better of its kind. All these birds were new to
the collection--no naturalists had previously worked this region--so
that the afternoon's work represented nine species new to the
collection, six new genera, and a most excellent soup.

Two days after leaving Campos Novos we reached Vilhena, where there is
a telegraph station. We camped once at a small river named by Colonel
Rondon the "Twelfth of October," because he reached it on the day
Columbus discovered America--I had never before known what day it
was!--and once at the foot of a hill which he had named after Lyra,
his companion in the exploration. The two days' march--really one full
day and part of two others--was through beautiful country, and we
enjoyed it thoroughly, although there were occasional driving rain-
storms, when the rain came in almost level sheets and drenched every
one and everything. The country was like that around Campos Novos, and
offered a striking contrast to the level, barren, sandy wastes of the
chapadao, which is a healthy region, where great industrial centres
can arise, but not suited for extensive agriculture as are the lowland
flats. For these forty-eight hours the trail climbed into and out of
steep valleys and broad basins and up and down hills. In the deep
valleys were magnificent woods, in which giant rubber-trees towered,
while the huge leaves of the low-growing pacova, or wild banana, were
conspicuous in the undergrowth. Great azure butterflies flitted
through the open, sunny glades, and the bellbirds, sitti