Plumbago

“ In large works the silver-lead alloy is removed when it contains 60-80% silver, and the cupellation of the rich bullion from several concentration furnaces is finished in a second furnace. At the same time the silver is brought to the required degree of fineness, usually by the use of nitre. In small works the cupellation is finished in one furnace, and the resulting low-grade silver fined in a plumbago crucible, either by overheating in the presence of air, or by the addition of silver sulphate to the melted silver, when air or sulphur trioxide and oxygen oxidize the impurities. ”

“ Pinguicula is abundant in the north temperate zone, and ranges down the Andes as far as Patagonia; the 250 species of Utricularia are mostly aquatic, and some are found in all save polar regions; their unimportant congeners, Genlisea and Polypompholix, occur in tropical America and south-western Australia respectively. ”

“ Among the palms there are several of great economic value, not only as food producers but also for various domestic uses. The fruit of the pupunha or peach palm (Guilielma speciosa) is an important food among the Indians of the Amazon valley, where the tree was cultivated by them long before the discovery of America. Humboldt found it among the native tribes of the Orinoco valley, where it is called pirijao. ”

“ The pretty little Belted Plover inhabits the Falklands and South Patagonia, and migrates north in winter as far as Paraguay; but it is not anywhere common, and is seldom seen in parties exceeding half a dozen in number. It is extremely active, always preferring wet grounds to dry, and runs rapidly over the mud in search of food like a Tringa. ”

“ Several Gauchos, settlers and Indians informed me that there were two kinds of pumas in Patagonia, one being very common, silver-grey in colour and cowardly; the other they described as rare, much fiercer, of a reddish colour, and somewhat smaller than the common grey species. Amongst the seventy-three pumas killed by the English pioneers near Lake Argentino, one, Mr. Cattle told me, differed very much from the ordinary puma, and judging from the description he gave of it, I have no hesitation in concluding that it was a specimen of Felis concolor pearsoni. ”

“ The current will naturally tend to bring together the statoblasts from the Polyzoa growing in the upper waters.
Nothing is more surprising than the wide geographical distribution of the Phylactolaemata. The European genera are all recorded from North America. Fredericella, Plumatella, and Lophopus are further recorded from Australia; while Plumatella is known to occur also in Malacca, the Philippine Islands, India, Japan, Africa, and South America, It is even stated that some of the Australian species are identical with those found in Europe. ”

“ Large droves of llamas and alpacas were scattered about over the pampa of Vilcapujio, and I observed that these animals mixed but little together, the one or two stray ones in each large drove looking like visitors, out of place. After leaving the pampa the road becomes more uneven, and crosses the river Ancacata several times. Ancacata is about four leagues from Vilcapujio, but the posta way-bills, or “guias,” give the distance as six leagues. ”

“ I have noticed more than once that houses have commenced to burn from the upper part of the thatched roof where they could not have caught fire accidentally. The Province of Pampanga extends to the westward, as far as the crests of the Zambales mountains, and the Cordillera of Mabanga is included within its boundaries. There is but little cultivated land beyond the town of Porac to the westward. Here the Pampangos trade with the Negritos, who inhabit the Zambales range, getting from them jungle produce in exchange for rice, tobacco, sugar, and other articles. ”

“ A bunch of fruit when ripe is a load for a strong man, and each tree bears several of them. The Pupunha grows wild nowhere on the Amazons. It is one of those few vegetable productions (including three kinds of mandioca and the American species of Banana) which the Indians have cultivated from time immemorial, and brought with them in their original migration to Brazil. It is only, however, the more advanced tribes who have kept up the cultivation. The superiority of the fruit on the Solimoens to that grown on the Lower Amazons and in the neighbourhood of Pará is very striking. ”

“ Though invisible and immortal, Puluga eats and drinks, and shows his anger by raising storms of wind and rain, and by hurling lighted faggots. He seeks his food on earth. Over the evil spirits he has no authority. ”

“ Two half-famished, prematurely-old, broken men were all that returned from the unknown wilds. The Pilcomayo, which has proved itself the river of death to so many brave men, remains to this day unexplored. ”

“ Nevertheless, in September, and even as early as August, they begin to arrive on the pampas, the golden plover often still wearing his black nuptial dress; singly and in pairs, in small flocks, and in clouds they come--curlew, godwit, plover, tatler, tringa--piping the wild notes to which the Greenlander listened in June, now to the gaucho herdsman on the green plains of La Plata, then to the wild Indian in his remote village; and soon, further south, to the houseless huanaco-hunter in the grey wilderness of Patagonia. ”

“ There is, perhaps, no wood in all South America harder than that of the pirijao palm.
It is with the needle-like spines of this species that many tribes of Indians puncture their skins in tattooing themselves, and other uses are made by them of different parts of this noble tree. The macaws, parrots, and other fruit-eating birds, are fonder of the nuts of the pupunha than perhaps any other species; and so, too, would be the fruit-eating quadrupeds if they could get at them. But the thorny trunk renders them quite inaccessible to all creatures without wings,271 excepting man himself. ”

“ Fig. 55.—Inflorescence of Plantago major, with bracts partly replaced by leaves and spike branched.
Fig. 56.—Inflorescence of Plantago lanceolata, bearing a tuft of leaves and flowers at the end of the flower-scape.
It is rather singular that each species of Plantago seems to have its own perverse mode of growth; for instance, the bracteate, polystachyate and paniculate forms are almost exclusively confined to P. major, the roseate form to P. media, the proliferous form to P. lanceolata. ”

“ The great majority of the genera and species are found in the equatorial regions of South America, only 9 species belonging to 5 genera ranging north of Panama, while 2 or 3 species extend to the southern limit of the tropical forests in Paraguay and Brazil. The genera which go north of Panama are Piprites, Pipra, Chiroxiphia, Chiromachæris, and Heteropelma. Pipra is the largest genus, containing 19 species, and having representatives throughout the whole range of the family. ”

“ When she grew to full womanhood her father offered her in marriage to Vrigu the rishi. Vrigu accepted her hand. And thus the wisest and the loveliest in all the land were united in wedlock.
They lived together happily and after several months Puloma was about to bear her lord a son. But before the child's birth the great sage went to bathe in a holy river. In his absence there came to his hermitage a demon king named Paulama. When Puloma was quite a child her father had promised her hand to the demon king. ”

“ According to their accounts, the huge rent in the Andes, the Pongo, is about five or six m. long, and in places not more than 80 ft. wide, and is a frightful series of torrents and whirlpools interspersed with rocks. There is an ancient tradition of the savages of the vicinity that one of their gods descending the Marañon and another ascending the Amazon to communicate with him, they opened the pass called the Pongo de Manseriche. ”

“ Enumerating from north to south, they are called the Esperanza, the Montelindo and the Macá. From 180 to 200 m. above its mouth the Pilcomayo filters through a vast swamp about 100 m. in diameter, through which there is no principal channel. This swamp, or perhaps shallow lagoon, is probably partly drained by the river Confuso, which reaches the Paraguay between the Pilcomayo and Macá. A northern branch of the Pilcomayo, the Fontana, the junction being at 24° 56′ S., is probably also a drainage outlet of the same great swamp. ”

“ Just in that moment when the sun has all but freed himself from the horizon, the pampas, in weather like this, is a golden and a wonderful and a living thing; comfortable as the light of a fire, the light of the sun destroys desolation and the bleakness of distance and almost the sense of loneliness.
Luggard had a month before him, perhaps more, to be lived out in this place. Here on the pampas he had to face Nature and Time without a companion and without a roof to cover him, and—at first sight, without an occupation to engage his mind. ”

“ Pupa (Jaminia) muscorum.—Common, especially on sandy soils near the sea. Mouth nearly circular, whereas in the two former species it [Pg 49] is horseshoe-shaped. The lip is thin and not reflected.
The genus Vertigo (i.e. twisted, the Latin equivalent of the Greek Helix) contains shells even smaller than the Pupæ, about the size of a pin’s head.
Vertigo (Alæa) antivertigo (i.e. not reversed or sinistral, as are V. pusilla and V. angustior) . Semi-transparent, glossy, horn-colour, with denticles (as have all except V. edentula and V. minutissima) . Found in nearly all counties in moist places. ”

“ The Golden Plover appears to be most abundant on the pampas between the thirty-fourth and thirty-sixth parallels of latitude, but how far south its range extends has not yet been ascertained. The return migration begins early in March, and yet Mr. Barrows met with it in the neighbourhood of Bahia Blanca and on the Sierra de la Ventana from February 8 to March 19. During most of this time he says it was abundant in flocks of from twenty to two hundred birds, which appeared to be moving uniformly south or south-west.
388. EUDROMIAS MODESTA (Licht.) . (WINTER PLOVER.)
Vanellus modestus, Burm. ”

“ The region termed ‘the Putumayo,’ consisting principally of the area drained by two tributaries of the Iça or Putumayo River, the Igaraparaná and the Caraparaná, lies far from the main stream of the Amazon, and is rarely visited by any vessels save those belonging to the Peruvian Amazon Company. The only other craft that penetrate that district are steamers of the Peruvian Government sent occasionally from Iquitos. ”

“ Thus it happens that, while a species seems well adapted to its state in its habits, it frequently seems not so well adapted in its relatively immutable structure. For example, without going away from the pampas, we find a Tringa with the habits of an upland Plover, a Tyrant-bird (Pitangus bellicosus) preying on mice and snakes, another Tyrant-bird (Myiotheretes rufiventris) Plover-like in its habits, and finally a Woodpecker (Colaptes campestris) that seeks its food on the ground like a Starling ”

“ My specimens were obtained from the provinces bordering the Plata. On the great swampy plains and fens which lie between Buenos Ayres and Bahia Blanca, it is very numerous in small, and occasionally, in large flocks. This plover, which appears as if mounted on stilts, has been wrongfully accused of inelegance; when wading about in shallow water, which is its favourite resort, its gait is far from awkward. ”

“ The pompano frequents the sandy beaches of the keys and islands of the Gulf coast, mostly the outside shores, where it feeds on beach-fleas and the beautiful little mollusks known as "pompano-shells," also on small shrimps and other [312] shore-loving organisms. ”

“ These are from the Coal-formation of Nova Scotia, and the Pupa must have been very abundant, as it has been found in considerable numbers in a layer of shale, and in the stumps of erect trees, in beds separated from each other by a thickness of 2,000 feet of strata. The Zonites is much more rare. A second Pupa is found in Nova Scotia, and two species occur in the Coal-field of Illinois. ”

“ It also has its own altar fund, which, although not very important as yet, will yield something for the support of those in charge there. All the [246] territory of Pampanga is surrounded by mountains where dwell Zambales and Negrillos, who descend to the villages for the purpose of head-hunting; for there is nothing so much to their taste as this. A people without abiding-place or house cannot be punished. They rest at night where they choose; and sustain themselves on roots and what game they bring down with their bows. ”

“ I journeyed across it in a trip from Mendoza to Bahia Blanca, and, as the name denotes, it is a vast featureless plain. Most of it is naturally fertile, but even regions that are sandy will be productive in the growing of alfalfa, which seems specially suitable, and which will not only maintain herds of cattle, but is profitable as a feeding stuff to be exported. As yet the pampa has been little more than scratched. From the railway cars the idea is obtained that the whole of the country is converted to the use of man. ”

“ Those Pongoes are never taken alive, because they are so strong that ten men cannot hold one of them, but yet they take many of their young ones with poisoned arrows. The young Pongo hangeth on his mother’s belly, with his hands clasped fast about her, so that when the country people kill any of the females, they take the young one which hangeth fast upon his mother. ”

“ The men of the pines and thistles seem to have lost this quality, while passing through the snows of the Cordilleras, or left it behind them, as they have also left the incipient civilization of their race. On the Pampas we find them once more in the character of the true savage: living by the chase or by plunder; and bartering the produce of the latter for the trappings and trinkets of personal adornment, supplied them by the unprincipled white trader. Puelches and Picunches, Pehuenches and Ranqueles, all share this character alike,—all are treacherous, quarrelsome, and cowardly. ”