cas. Indeed, when
we mixed up our Quichua with a little Anglo-Saxon, they evidently
thought the latter was a terrible anathema, for they sprang to their
places without delay.

In seven hours we arrived at Suno, a collection of half a dozen palm
booths, five feet high, the miserable owners of which do a little
fishing and gold-washing. They gave us possession of their largest hut,
in which they had been roasting a sea-cow, and the stench was
intolerable. Nevertheless, one of our number bravely threw down his
blanket within, and went to sleep; two swung their hammocks between the
trees, and the rest slept in the canoe. Here, for the first time since
leaving Guayaquil, we were tormented by musquitoes. Bats were also quite
numerous, but none of them were blood-thirsty; and we may add that
nowhere in South America were we troubled by those diabolical imps of
imaginative travelers, the leaf-nosed species. So far as our experience
goes, we can say, with Bates, that the vampire, so common on the Amazon,
is the most harmless of all bats. It has, however, a most hideous
physiognomy. A full-grown specimen will measure twenty-eight inches in
expanse of wing. Bates found two species on the Amazon--one black, the
other of a ruddy line, and both fruit-eaters.

The nocturnal music of these forests is made by crickets and tree-toads.
The voice of the latter sounds like the cracking of wood. Occasionally
frogs, owls, and goat-suckers croak, hoot, and wail. Between midnight
and 3 A.M. almost perfect silence reigns. At early dawn the animal
creation awakes with a scream. Pre-eminent are the discordant cries of
monkeys and macaws. As the sun rises higher, one musician after another
seeks the forest shade, and the morning concert ends at noon. In the
heat of the day there is an all-pervading rustling sound, caused by the
fluttering of myriad insects and the gliding of lizards and snakes. At
sunset parrots and monkeys resume their chatter for a season, and then
give way to the noiseless flight of innumerable bats chasing the
hawk-moth and beetle. There is scarcely a sound in a tropical forest
which is joyous and cheering. The birds are usually silent; those that
have voices utter a plaintive song, or hoarse, shrill cry. Our
door-yards are far more melodious on a May morning. The most common
birds on the Napo are macaws, parrots, toucans, and ciganas. The
parrots, like the majority in South America, are of the green type. The
toucan, peculia