Ch. XXL] BIRDS OF NICARAGUA. 377 



the works. This book has not been written, however, 

 to tell the story of the struggles of a mining engineer ; 

 and I turn aside with pleasure from this slight digression 

 to say what little more I have to relate of my natural- 

 history experiences. 



I did not, until near the conclusion of my stay, com- 

 mence collecting the skins of birds, contenting myself 

 with watching and noting their habits. I obtained the 

 skins of ninety-two species only ; but small as this col- 

 lection was, it proved an important addition to the 

 knowledge of the bird-fauna of Nicaragua. The eminent 

 ornithologist, Mr. Osbert Salvin, published in the " Ibis ' 

 for July, 1872, a list of seventy-three species that I had up 

 to that time sent to England. Altogether, only one 

 hundred and fifty species, including those that I had col- 

 lected, were known from Nicaragua. Fragmentary as 

 our knowledge is, it is sufficient, in Mr. Salvm's opinion, 

 to indicate, with tolerable accuracy, to which of the two 



/ ' 



sub-provinces of the Central American fauna the forest 

 region of Chontales belongs. The birds I sent to Eng- 

 land proved nearly conclusively that the Costa-Rican 

 sub-province included Chontales in Nicaragua, and that 

 the boundary between it and the sub-province of 

 Southern Mexico and Guatemala must be sought for 

 more to the north-west. 



Of the southern species, which in Chontales find their 

 northern limit, so far as is known, there are in my small 

 collection thirty-two species, whilst belonging to the 

 northern sub-province, and not known to range further 

 south, there are only seven species ; showing that the 

 connection with Costa Rica and the south is much closer 

 than that with Guatemala and the north, and that the 



