Upon the borders of the New River and main Corentyne, above the last-mentioned fall, we met with large groves of Brazil-nut-trees, and on the ground beneath them obtained numbers of their nuts. I was fortunate to find some of the nut-cases containing nuts that had commenced to germinate, each nut sending out long roots from one end and young plants from the other. The roots were all twisted and matted together, quite filling up the cavities in the case around the nuts; yet the nut-case was hard and showed no signs of decay, so that it is difficult to say how the young plants free themselves. There is a small aperture where the fruit-stalk was once attached, but in only one instance did I find a case in which one of the young plants had found its way out through this and sent forth leaves. It seems to me that when this happens one plant alone survives of the twelve or fifteen that commenced to grow, and that its matted roots, gradually filling the nut-case, eventually burst it, when the plant is free to take root in the earth. The strong cover of the growing nut is a necessary protection to the young plant, for without such it would be devoured by one of the host of animals that are ready to eat it. I planted some of the sprouting nuts, cut out of their hard outer covering, on my way up the river, but on returning found that they had all been dug up and eaten by rats and other small vermin. I therefore had a lot planted in a box at our camp above King Frederick William IV. Fall on my first return to that spot, and placed on the stem of a small tree cut off some five feet from the ground. In this position they were free from the attacks of small animals, and, being covered with a shelter of some palm-leaves, thrived wonderfully. These plants were subsequently sent to Kew, where they arrived in a fine healthy condition. We found many nut-cases with holes cut in them by accouries, the marks of the gnawing teeth of those animals being plainly shown. My men used to open them by chopping off their ends with a cutlass, which, owing to their hardness, was no easy operation. The quatas, or large black spider-monkeys, spent a good deal of their time in trying to open them by beating them against the branches of trees or on hard logs upon the ground; and as we passed a grove of Brazil-nut-trees it was amusing to hear the hammering sounds produced by these fellows at their self-imposed tasks. Where a single monkey was thus employed the blows were most laughably "few and far between," the creature showing its true indolent character by the slow way in which it performed its work, resting for a few minutes between every blow. It also showed an amount of perseverance, however, that one would not look for in a monkey, and a knowledge that it would eventually reap a reward for its hard labor.