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The egg is rather slenderer and much curved; in form it is long, cylindrical, obtuse at one end, and much smaller at the other. The body is rather thick behind, but in front tapers slowly towards the head, which is of moderate size. Its body is somewhat tuberculated, the tubercle aiding the grub in moving about its cell.
The breadfruit are as big as Dutch cheese, weighing four or five pounds, their green rinds tuberculated like a golf-ball. Sapadillos, tamarinds, limes, mangoes, oranges, acachous, and a dozen other native fruits are to be had. Cocoanuts and papayas are of course, favorites. There are many kinds of cocoanuts.
The genus Anura may be readily recognized by the mouth ending in an acutely conical beak, with its end quite free from the head and hanging down beneath it. The body is short and broad, much tuberculated, while the antennæ are short and pointed, and the legs are much shorter than in Lipura, not reaching more than a third of their length beyond the body.
Amongst the cartilaginous ones, petromyzons-pricka, a sort of eel, fifteen inches long, with a greenish head, violet fins, grey-blue back, brown belly, silvered and sown with bright spots, the pupil of the eye encircled with gold a curious animal, that the current of the Amazon had drawn to the sea, for they inhabit fresh waters tuberculated streaks, with pointed snouts, and a long loose tail, armed with a long jagged sting; little sharks, a yard long, grey and whitish skin, and several rows of teeth, bent back, that are generally known by the name of pantouffles; vespertilios, a kind of red isosceles triangle, half a yard long, to which pectorals are attached by fleshy prolongations that make them look like bats, but that their horny appendage, situated near the nostrils, has given them the name of sea-unicorns; lastly, some species of balistae, the curassavian, whose spots were of a brilliant gold colour, and the capriscus of clear violet, and with varying shades like a pigeon's throat.
Their note is also entirely unlike. The "Trumpeter" is different from either. He is the largest, being frequently met with of nearly six feet in length, while the common swan rarely exceeds five. The bill of the Trumpeter is not tuberculated; and the yellow patch under the eye is wanting. The bill, legs, and feet are entirely black.
The first tegument is osseous or ligneous, triangular, tuberculated on its exterior surface, and of the colour of cinnamon. Four or five, and sometimes eight of these triangular nuts, are attached to a central partition. As they are loosened in time, they move freely in the large spherical pericarp. I have most frequently found only from fifteen to twenty-two nuts in each fruit.
Smaller plants, such as are in English collections, have globose stems 1 ft. through, with about thirteen ribs, the ribs tuberculated, the tubercles large, and rounded; the spines are borne on the apex of the tubercles in star-shaped bundles of eight or nine, and are angled, often flat on the top side, articulated, with hooked points, whilst in length they vary from 1 in. to 4 in.
The stem is almost sphere-shaped, from 4 in. to 6 in. high, the tuberculated ridges about ¼ in. deep, and upon each tubercle is a tuft of about a dozen brown, radiating spines, with a long central one hooked at the point.
Another of the cylindrical kinds, with a solid, woody trunk, about 4 in. through, and clothed with smooth, green bark; it grows to a height of 7 ft. or 8 ft. Branches very numerous, slender, copiously jointed, the ultimate joints about 3 in. long and ½ in. thick; they are slightly tuberculated, and bear tufts of spines nearly 1 in. long.
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