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Forest of Serra das Estrellas, province of Rio de Janeiro
page 248 ---wildlife---birds---tapir---cats---
While thus every living creature by its actions and voice greets the splendour
of the day, the delicate humming-birds (1), rivalling in beauty  and lustre
diamonds, emeralds, and sapphires, hover round the brightest flowers.
When the sun goes down, most of the animals retire to rest; only the slender deer, the shy pecari, the timid agouti, and the tapir (2) still graze
around; the nasua and the opossum, the cunning animals of the feline race
(3), steal through the obscurity of the wood watching for prey, till at
last the howling monkeys, the sloth with a cry as of one in distress,
the croaking frogs, and the chirping grass-hoppers with their monotonous
note, conclude the day; the cries of the macuc, the capueira, the goat-sucker (4), and the bass tones of the bull-frog announce the approach of night.
Myriads of luminous beetles now begin to fly about like ignes fatui, and the blood-sucking bats (5) hover like phantoms
in the profound darkness of the night.
(1) Hummingbirds : Trochilus
ornatus, Trochilus Mango, Trochilus Maugaeus, Trochilus leucogaster, Trochilus viridissimus, T. mellisugus, T.
amethystinus, T. hirundinaceus
nob., T. crispus, T. pygmaeus, T.
brevicauda, T. albo-gularis, T. leucopygius, T.
Helios, T. Mystax nob.; Grypus ruficollis nob. (2) Cervus
mexicanus; Coelogenys
Paca; Dasyprocta Agouty, Dasyprocta Acuschy; Cavia aperea; Lepus
brasiliensis; Tapirus
americanus, var. rufa. (3) Cat family : Nasua
Quasie, Nasua rufa; Didelphis
cayopollin; Felis onca, Felis discolor, Bradypus tridactylus. (4) Goatsuckers : Tinamus noctivagus Neuw.; Perdix guyanensis; Caprimulgus albicollis.
(5) Bloodsucking bats : Vespertilio
brasiliensis Geof.; Glossophaga
amplexicauda Geof.
page 249 ---wildlife---bats---weasels---geology---
Inanimate nature too presents a beautiful and sublime picture in its long-extending
mountain ridges, thickly wooded to the summits. The Serra
dos Orgaos, and all the parts of the same range, which, branching
out in different directions, runs along the sea-coast northwards through
the district of Canto Gallo to Porto Segura and Bahia,
and southwards to Santos,
consists of granite.
Serra dos Orgaos, province of Rio de Janeiro
In the forest of Mandiocca,
towards the mountain, there are uncommonly large blocks of this kind of
rock, which have rolled down from the summit of the mountains; their clefts
afford shelter to numbers of coatis and black weasels (1); and a great
variety of begonia, heliconia, and drostenia grow under their shady projections. At the first sight, we fancied both
here and in the neighborhood of Rio that we saw the granite, which in our own country forms the mountain chain
from Passau along
the frontiers of Bohemia,
so extraordinary is the resemblance between that in the new world and
that in the old. Among the varieties which we had occasion to observe,
one consists of much reddish or light smoke-colored felspar, a little
smoky quartz, and pretty much black small foliated mica.
(1) Mustela barbara.
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