iate with
tropical vegetation, were very scarce. I saw but a few specimens.
Thrushes and doves were more frequent, and I noticed also three or four
kinds of woodpeckers. Of these latter there were countless numbers along
our canoe path, flying overhead in dense crowds, and, at times, drowning
every other sound in their high, noisy chatter.

These made a deep impression upon me. Indeed, in all regions, however
far away from his own home, in the midst of a fauna and flora entirely
new to him, the traveller is startled occasionally by the song of a bird
or the sight of a flower so familiar that it transports him at once to
woods where every tree is like a friend to him. It seems as if something
akin to what in our own mental experience we call reminiscence or
association existed in the workings of nature; for though the organic
combinations are so distinct in different climates and countries, they
never wholly exclude each other. Every zooelogical and botanical province
retains some link which binds it to all the rest, and makes it part of
the general harmony. The Arctic lichen is found growing under the shadow
of the palm on the rocks of the tropical serra, and the song of the
thrush and the tap of the woodpecker mingle with the sharp discordant
cries of the parrot and paroquet.

Birds of prey, also, were not wanting. Among them was one about the size
of our kite, and called the Red Hawk, which was so tame that, even when
our canoe passed immediately under the low branch on which he was
sitting, he did not fly away. But of all the groups of birds, the most
striking as compared with corresponding groups in the temperate zone,
and the one which reminded me the most directly of the fact that every
region has its peculiar animal world, was that of the gallinaceous
birds. The most frequent is the Cigana, to be seen in groups of fifteen
or twenty, perched upon trees overhanging the water, and feeding upon
berries. At night they roost in pairs, but in the daytime are always in
larger companies. In their appearance they have something of the
character of both the pheasant and peacock, and yet do not closely
resemble either. It is a curious fact, that, with the exception of some
small partridge-like gallinaceous birds, all the representatives of this
family in Brazil, and especially in the Valley of the Amazons, belong to
types which do not exist in other parts of the world. Here we find
neither pheasants, nor cocks of the woods,