season is not excessive, is there any summer torpidity as in some
tropical countries. Plants do not flower or shed their leaves,
nor do birds moult, pair, or breed simultaneously. In Europe, a
woodland scene has its spring, its summer, its autumn, and its
winter aspects. In the equatorial forests the aspect is the same
or nearly so every day in the year: budding, flowering, fruiting,
and leaf shedding are always going on in one species or other.
The activity of birds and insects proceeds without interruption,
each species having its own separate times; the colonies of
wasps, for instance, do not die off annually, leaving only the
queens, as in cold climates; but the succession of generations
and colonies goes on incessantly. It is never either spring,
summer, or autumn, but each day is a combination of all three.
With the day and night always of equal length, the atmospheric
disturbances of each day neutralising themselves before each
succeeding morn; with the sun in its course proceeding midway
across the sky, and the daily temperature the same within two or
three degrees throughout the year--how grand in its perfect
equilibrium and simplicity is the march of Nature under the
equator!

Our evenings were generally fully employed preserving our
collections, and making notes. We dined at four, and took tea
about seven o'clock. Sometimes we walked to the city to see
Brazilian life or enjoy the pleasures of European and American
society. And so the time passed away from June 15th to August
26th. During this period we made two excursions of greater length
to the rice and saw-mills of Magoary, an establishment owned by
an American gentleman, Mr. Upton, situated on the banks of a
creek in the heart of the forest, about twelve miles from Para. I