The Naturalist on the River Amazons: A Record of Adventures, Habits of Animals, Sketches of Brazilian and Indian Life, and Aspects of Nature Under the Equator During Eleven Years of TravelHumboldt Publishing Company, 1880 - 774 pages |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
afterward alligators animal ants appearance ashore banks beautiful birds boat branches Brazilian broad cacao Cafuzo called Cametá campos canoe Cardozo Caripí channel clothed coast color creek distance Double number dry season Ecitons eggs farinha feet fish flocks foliage Fonte Boa forest fruit ground habits hammocks head height inches Indians inhabitants insects interior islands Japurá kind lake land larvæ leaves length live lower main river mameluco mandioca miles monkeys montaria morning mouth Mundurucús natives nearly neighborhood neighboring night o'clock Obydos palms Pará Pará river passed plants Portuguese ramble Rio Negro road rocinha sail sand sandy Santarem seemed seen Senhor shade shore side Solimoens species stream Tabatinga tail Tapajos tion Tocantins Toucans travelling trees tribe trunks Tupí turtles Upper Amazons vegetation vessel Villa Nova village voyage walk wild wind wings woods yards young
Popular passages
Page 673 - It was lively only for two or three, and then its loud note could be heard from one end of the village to the other. When it died he gave me the specimen, the only one I was able to procure. It is a member of the family Locustidae, a group intermediate between the Crickets (Achetidae) and the Grasshoppers (Acridiidae).
Page 655 - One day I saw the children belonging to an Indian family who collected for me with one of these monsters secured by a cord round its waist, by which they were leading it about the house as they would a dog.
Page 629 - ... other workers, and is not known in any other kind of ant. The apparition of these strange creatures from the cavernous depths of the mine reminded me, when I first observed them, of the Cyclopes of Homeric fable. They were not very pugnacious, as I feared they would be, and I had no difficulty in securing a few with my fingers. I never saw them under any other circumstances than those here related, and what their special functions may be I cannot divine.
Page 713 - ... in search of, began then to pass over, the different styles of cawing and screaming of the various species making a terrible discord. Added to these noises were the songs of strange Cicadas, one large kind perched high on the trees around our little haven setting up a most piercing chirp ; it began with the usual harsh jarring tone of its tribe, but this gradually and rapidly became shriller, until it ended in a long and loud note resembling the steam-whistle of a locomotive engine.
Page 740 - It is scarcely exaggerating to say that the waters of the Solimoens are as well stocked with large alligators in the dry season, as a ditch in England is in summer with tadpoles.
Page 706 - ... in search of the serpent. They began in a systematic manner, forming two parties, each embarked in three or four canoes, and starting from points several miles apart, whence they gradually approximated, searching all the little inlets on both sides the river. The reptile was found at last sunning itself on a log at the mouth of a muddy rivulet, and dispatched with harpoons.
Page 742 - The egg, it may be here mentioned, has a flexible or leathery shell ; it is quite round, and somewhat larger than a hen's egg. The whole heap is thrown into an empty canoe and mashed with wooden prongs ; but sometimes naked Indians and children jump into the mass and tread it down, besmearing themselves with yolk and making about as filthy a scene as can well be imagined. This being finished, water is poured into the canoe, and the fatty...
Page 761 - The main column of the army and the branch columns, at these times, were in their ordinary relative positions; but, instead of pressing forward eagerly, and plundering right and left, they seemed to have been all smitten with a sudden fit of laziness. Some were walking slowly about, others were brushing their antennae with their fore- feet; but the drollest sight was their cleaning one another.