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Show 770 MR. E. E. AUSTEN ON A RECENT ZOOLOGICAL [June 16 the time occupied by the cable-operations, with the exception of Santarem, where w e remained for four days and a half. W e left Manaos on the downward voyage on Feb. 15th, preceded two days earlier by Mr. Pickard Cambridge, who had decided to return to Santarem in order to stay for a fortnight in tbe forest some nine miles inland from that town, at a cottage which had been most kindly placed at our disposal by M r . Wallace, an American trader. After due consideration I bad decided to remain with the ship, in order to visit other localities near the mouth of the river, and so make the most of our opportunities by dividing our forces. On the downward voyage w e ran aground in mid-stream near Monte Alegre, and remained there for four days before getting off. Un-fortunatefy I was suffering at the time from a swollen foot, and being scarcely able to walk I was unable to profit by this delay. After another day's collecting at Gurupa, w e reached Macapa on the northern shore on Feb. 24, and I was enabled to collect for a day at a locality which, so far as I a m aware, had not been visited before by a European naturalist. Thence, after calling at Chaves, in the island of Marajo, and again at Breves, w e returned to somewhere near our old anchorage in the Para River on March 5th, and the expedition was nearly at an end. Connections, however, still had to be made with a few places in the vicinity of Para, and, as it was expected that these operations would take at least a fortnight, I resolved to avail myself of an opportunity which occurred on the following day of going to stay for a time at Mosqueiro, a little place seventeen miles below Para on the same shore, in order to make the utmost of the time that still remained for collecting. I remained here until March 16th, when the 'Faraday' arrived, and 1 returned in her to our anchorage below Para. During the second half of m y stay at Mosqueiro work was much interfered with by rain. Mr. Pickard-Cambridge, w h o had already returned from Santarem, now rejoined the ship, and the next few days were occupied mainly in preparations for the homeward voyage. W e sailed from Para at 6 A.M on March 24th, and reached Gravesend on the morning of April 14th. O n referring to m y diary I find that, although w e spent rather more than eleven weeks (79 days) on the Amazon and the Para River, owing to the special conditions of the expedition, the actual number of days on which I was able to collect ashore amounted in the aggregate to only five weeks (35 days). Then, again, in considering results, it must be remembered that in our flying visits to the various localities already mentioned between Para and Manaos we were often hampered by much uncertainty as to the exact time for which the ship would remain, and by the necessity for returning to the shore at a particular moment in order to catch the launch or boat going off to the ship. On the other hand, the days spent in steaming from place to place, and others on which we were unable to land, were by no means wasted, since tbe numbers of insects which were attracted by tbe ship's electric lights at night kept m e pretty busily occupied. |