a favourite orange tree entirely denuded of foliage. A big ant called the tucandera is very common just outside Pará; indeed it is hardly possible to walk many yards in the forest without meeting it: the bite inflicts excruciating agony. I have never been stung by a scorpion or bitten by a centipede; but I have been nipped by a tucandera, and can quite believe that the pain inflicted is more severe than that of either of the two former.

What with the uproar of çicadas, chirping of grasshoppers, screaming of parrots, cawing of aráras or macaws (the cry of this splendidly plumaged bird closely resembles ára, arára, hence its name), plaintive notes of japím and toucans, and numerous other indescribable sounds, the attention of the new-comer is kept continually upon the qui vive until eleven o'clock, when the intense oven-like heat warns him it is time to return. Emerging from the forest into one of the avenues the sun will be found nearly overhead; lizards of all sizes—that is to say from three inches to four feet in length—dart across the path and scuttle into the bush; and here and there a snake has to be guarded against, and if need be killed, with the short sapling which every pedestrian ought to carry. Upon reaching home I usually took a bath, had a substantial breakfast, and rested till the unfailing thunderstorm cooled the atmosphere.