deceptive resemblance to the species of working bee, in whose nest it deposits the egg it has otherwise no means of providing for, or when a leaping-spider, as it crouches in the axil of a leaf waiting for its prey, presents an exact imitation of a flower-bud; it is evident that the benefit of the imitating species is the object had in view. When, however, an insect mimics another species of its own order where predaceous or parasitic habits are out of the question, it is not so easy to divine the precise motive of the adaptation. We may be sure, nevertheless, that one of the two!s assimilated in external appearance to the other for some purpose useful—perhaps of life-and-death importance—to the species. I believe these imitations are of the same nature as those in which an insect or lizard is coloured and marked so as to resemble the soil, leaf, or bark on which it lives; the resemblance serving to conceal the creatures from the prying eyes of their enemies; or, if they are predaceous species, serving them as a disguise to enable them to approach their prey. When an insect, instead of a dead or inorganic substance, mimics another species of its own order, and does not prey, or is not parasitic, may it not be inferred that the mimicker is subject to a persecution by insectivorous animals from which its model is free? Many species of insects have a most deceptive resemblance to living or dead leaves; it is generally admitted, that this serves to protect them from the onslaughts of insect-feeding animals who would devour the insect, but refuse the leaf. The same might be said of a species mimicking another of the same order: one may be as repugnant to the tastes of insect persecutors, as a leaf or a piece of bark would be, and its imitator not enjoying this advantage would escape by being deceptively assimilated to it in external appearances. In the present instance, it is not very clear what property the Callithea possesses to render it less liable to persecution than the Agrias, except it be that it has a strong odour somewhat resembling Vanilla, which the Agrias is destitute of. This odour becomes very powerful when the insect is roughly handled or pinched, and if it serves as a protection to the Callithea, it would explain why the Agrias is assimilated to it in colours. The resemblance, as before remarked, applies chiefly to the upper side; in other species * it is equally close on both surfaces of the wings. Some birds, and the great ASschnz dragon-flies, take their insect prey whilst on the wing, when the upper surface of the wings is the side most conspicuous.

In the broad alleys of the forest where these beautiful insects are found, several species of Morpho were common. One of these is a sister form to the Morpho Hecuba, which I have mentioned as occurring at Obydos. The Villa Nova kind differs from Hecuba sufficiently to be considered a distinct species, and has been described under the name of M. Cisseis; but it is clearly only a local variety of it, the range of the two being limited by the barrier of the broad Amazons. It is a grand sight to see these colossal butterflies by twos and threes floating at a great height in the still air of a tropical morning. They flap their wings only at long intervals, for I have noticed them to sail a very considerable distance withouta stroke. Their wing-muscles, and their thorax to which

Agrias Hewitsonius and Callithea Markii.

they are attached, are very feeble in comparison with the wide extent and weight of the wings; but the large expanse of these members doubtless assists the insects in maintaining their aérial course. Morphos are amongst the most conspicuous of the insect denizens of ‘Tropical American forests, and the broad glades of the Villa Nova woods seemed especially suited to them, for I noticed here six species. The largest specimens of Morpho Cisseis measure seven inches and a, half in expanse. Another smaller kind, which I.could not capture, was of a pale silvery-blue colour, and the polished surface of its wings flashed like a silver speculum, as the insect flapped its wings at a great elevation in the sunlight. To resume our voyage. We left Villa Nova on the 4th of December. A light wind on the 5th carried us across to the opposite shore, and past the mouth of the Parana-mirim do arco, or “ the little river of the bow,” so called on account of its being a short arm of the main river, of a curved shape, rejoining the Amazons a little below Villa Nova. On the 6th, after passing a large island in mid-river, we arrived at a place where a line of perpendicular clay cliffs, called the Barreiros Cararauct, diverts slightly the course of the main stream, as at Obydos. A little below these cliffs were a few settlers’ houses: here Penna remained ten days to trade, a delay which I turned to good account in augmenting very considerably my collections.

At the first house a festival was going forward. We anchored at some distance from the shore, on account of the water being shoaly, and early in the morning three canoes put off, laden with salt fish, oil of manatee, fowls and bananas, wares which the owners wished to exchange for different articles required for the festa. Soon after I went ashore. The head man was a tall, well-made, civilised Tapuyo, named Marcellino, who, with his wife, a thin, active, wiry old squaw, did the honours of their house, I thought, admirably. The company consisted of 50 or 60 Indians and Mamelucos; some of them knew Portuguese, but the Tupi language was the only one used amongst themselves. The festival was in honour of our Lady of Conception; and when the people learnt that Penna had on board an image of the saint handsomer than their own, they put off in their canoes to borrow it; Marcellino taking charge of the doll, covering it carefully with a neatly-bordered white towel. On landing with the image, a procession was formed from the port to the house, and salutes fired from a couple of lazarino guns, the saint being afterwards carefully deposited in the family oratorio. After a litany and hymn were sung in the evening, all assembled to supper around a large mat spread on a smooth terrace-like space in front of the house. The meal consisted of a large boiled Pirarect, which had been harpooned for the purpose in the morning, stewed and roasted turtle, piles of mandioca-meal and bananas. The old lady, with two young girls, showed the greatest activity in waiting on the guests, Marcellino standing gravely by, observing what was wanted and giving the necessary orders to his wife. When all was done, hard drinking began, and soon after there was a dance, to which Penna andI were invited. The liquor served was chiefly a spirit distilled by the people themselves from mandioca cakes. The dances were all of the same class—namely,

different varieties of the ‘“‘ Landum,” an erotic dance similar to the fandango, originally learnt from the Portuguese. The music was supplied by a couple of wire-stringed guitars, played alternately by the young men. All passed off very quietly considering the amount of strong liquor drunk, and the ball was kept up until sunrise the next morning. We visited all the houses one after the other. One of them was situated in a charming spot, with a broad sandy beach before it, at the entrance to the Parand-mirim do Mucambo, a channel leading to an interior lake, peopled by savages of the Mura tribe. This seemed to be the abode of an industrious family, but all the men were absent, salting Pirarect' on the lakes. The house, like its neighbours, was simply a framework of poles thatched with palm leaves, the walls roughly latticed and plastered with mud: but it was larger and much cleaner inside than the others. It was full of women and children, who were busy all day with their various employments; some weaving hammocks in a large clumsy frame, which held the warp whilst the shuttle was passed by the hand slowly across the six feet breadth of web; others spinning cotton, and others again, scraping, pressing, and roasting mandioca. The family had cleared and cultivated a large piece of ground; the soil was of extraordinary richness, the perpendicular banks of the river, near the house, revealing a depth of many feet of crumbling vegetable mould. There was a large plantation of tobacco, besides the usual patches of Indian-corn, sugar-cane, and mandioca; and a grove of cotton, cacao, coffee and fruit trees, surrounded the house. We passed two nights at anchor in shoaly water off the beach. The weather was most beautiful, and scores of Dolphins rolled and snorted about the canoe all night.

I saw here, for the first time, the flesh-coloured species (Delphinus pallidus of Gervais?), which rolled always in pairs, both individuals being of the same colour. In the day-time the margin of the beach abounded with a small tiger-beetle (Cicindela hebraea of Klug), which flew up like a swarm of house-flies before our steps as we walked along. It is not easily detected, for its colour is assimilated to that of the moist sand over which it runs. I have a pleasant recollection of this sand-bank, from having here observed, for the first time, in ascending the river, one of the handsomest of the many handsome butterflies which are found exclusively in the interior parts of the South American continent, namely the Papilio Columbus. It is of a cream-white colour bordered with black, and has a patch of crimson near the commencement of its long slender tails. In the forest, amongst a host of other beautiful and curious insects, I found another species of the same genus, which was new to me, namely, the Papilio Lysander, remarkable for the contrasted colours of its livery—crimson and blue-green spots on a black ground. This conspicuous insect may be cited as affording another illustration of the way in which species so very commonly become modified according to the different localities they inhabit. P. Lysander is found throughout the interior of the Amazons country, from Villa Nova to Peru, and also in Dutch and British Guiana. In the Delta region of the Amazons it is replaced by a form which has been treated as a distinct species, namely, the P. Parsodes of Gray. In French Guiana,

however, numerous varieties intermediate between the two are found, so that we are compelled to consider them as local modifications of one and the same species. The difference between the two local forms is of a slight nature, and many naturalists on this account alone would consider them to belong to the same species; but the numerous existing intermediate shades of variation show how many grades are possible between even two local varieties of a species. In fact, the steps of modification are found to be exceedingly small and numerous in all cases where the filiation of races or species can be traced; and this circumstance may be held as confirming the truth of the axiom, “‘ Natura -non facit saltum,” which has been impugned by some writers.

About two miles beyond this sand-bank was the miserable abode of a family of Mura Indians, the most degraded tribe inhabiting the banks of the Amazons. It was situated on a low terrace on the shores of a pretty little bay at the commencement of the high barreiros. With the exception of a ciuster of bananas there were no fruit-trees or plantation .of any description near the house. We saw in the bay several large alligators, with head and shoulders just reared above the level of the water. ‘The house was a mere hovel; a thatch of palm-leaves supported on a slender framework of upright posts and rafters, bound with flexible lianas, and the walls were partially plastered up with mud. A low doorway led into the dark chamber, the bare earth floor was filthy in the extreme; and ina damp corner I espied two large toads whose eyes glittered in the darkness. The furniture consisted of a few low stools; there was no mat, and the hammock was a rudely woven web of ragged strips of the inner bark of the Mongtiba tree. Bows and arrows hung from the smoke-blackened rafters. An ugly woman, clad in a coarse petticoat, and holding a child astride across her hip, sat crouched over a fire roasting the head of a large fish. Her husband was occupied in notching pieces of bamboo for arrow-heads. Both of them seemed rather disconcerted at our sudden entrance; we could get nothing but curt and surly answers to our questions, and so were glad to depart.

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