seven we breakfasted on a sand-bank, and got our clothes and
blankets dried. There were numerous tracks of alligators, but it
was too early to look for their eggs in the sand; a month later, in
March, when the river falls, they are found in abundance, and eaten
by the canoe-men. At noon we reached the point where the Seripiqui,
a river coming down from the interior of Costa Rica, joins the San
Juan about thirty miles above Greytown. The Seripiqui is navigable
by canoes for about twenty miles from this point, and then
commences a rough mountain mule-track to San Jose, the capital of
Costa Rica. We paddled on all the afternoon with little change in
the river. At eight we anchored for the night, and although it
rained heavily again, I was better prepared for it, and, coiling
myself up under an umbrella beneath the tarpaulin, managed to sleep
a little.

We started again before daylight, and at ten stopped at a small
clearing for breakfast. I strolled back a little way into the
gloomy forest, but it was not easy to get along on account of the
undergrowth and numerous climbing plants that bound it together. I
saw one of the large olive-green and brown mot-mots (Momotus
martii), sitting upon a branch of a tree, moving its long curious
tail from side to side, until it was nearly at right angles to its
body. I afterwards saw other species in the forests and savannahs
of Chontales. They all have several characters in common, linked
together in a series of gradations. One of these features is a spot
of black feathers on the breast. In some species this is edged with
blue, in others, as in the one mentioned above, these black
feathers form only a small black spot nearly hidden amongst the
rust-coloured feathers of the breast. Characters such as these,
very conspicuous in some species, shading off in others through