r their owners. Their beaks are extremely strong.
When in captivity they are disastrous to one's belongings, as they seem
to possess an irresistible desire to crush and tear anything they see.
They can chip off pieces of furniture made of the hardest wood with
considerable ease. This is easily understood when you can see them crush
into fragments the extremely hard nuts of the _Acrocomia lasiopatha_, on
which they principally live.

Sir Roger Casement, of Putumayo atrocities fame, whom I had the pleasure
of meeting at Manaos, possessed a most beautiful specimen of the
_Macrocerus hyacinthinus_. It was most touching to see the pathetic
devotion which existed between master and bird and _vice versa_. Only the
people of the hotel where we both stayed did not appreciate the
magnificent blue-black visitor, for when its master was out it spent all
its time chipping off pieces from tables and chairs, and took the
greatest pride and delight in flinging forks, knives and spoons off the
dining-room tables, and tearing the menus to strips. The Brazilian
waiters, in their caution to maintain their own anatomy intact, did not
dare go near it; for the bird, even on hearing remarks made on its
behaviour, would let itself down the sides of chairs and defiantly
proceed to attack the intruders.

Similar but larger and more beautiful than this macaw is the _ararama_,
extremely rare and perfectly black. The natives say that it is impossible
to keep it in captivity as it is quite untameable. I saw a couple of
these birds. They were really magnificent--certainly 3 ft. in length from
the tip of the beak to the end of the tail.

When the steamer was close enough to the banks or an island we
occasionally saw small groups of _assahy_ palms (_Euterpe oleracea_) 20
to 30 ft. high, with smooth stems and feather-like foliage. Other palms,
equally graceful, with stems like polished columns and delicately-cut
fronds aloft, were also to be seen; but otherwise most of the vegetation
was entangled and untidy.

From the trees hung liane in festoons or suspended like cords. Creepers
of all kinds smothered the trunks and branches of the trees, which seemed
to struggle for a little life and air; while, when we had an opportunity
of examining the branches of the trees a little closer, we could see
absolute swarms of parasites covering every bough.

Near some of the houses could be seen the _Musa paradisiaca_, the most
common kind of banana palm in that r