216 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol. 93 



allowing the bearing of arras for hunting, and for other courtesies. 

 Thanks are due many friends in Mexico for assistance in a variety 

 of matters. 



Previous biological work in this general region had been decidedly 

 limited, most of the studies relating to the region farther to the north 

 between the city of Veracruz and the great volcano of Orizaba. Occa- 

 sional specimens of birds have been recorded from Alvarado and 

 Tlacotalpam, but these were few until 1894, when E. W. Nelson and 

 E. A. Goldman, of the Biological Survey, made a general reconnais- 

 sance that covered a part of the section. Their observations were 

 made principally near Tlacotalpam on April 21 and 22 and May 17 

 to 29, and at Catemaco from April 26 to May 5. From San Andres 

 Tuxtla, May 11 to 13, they made an excursion into the Sierra de 

 Tuxtla, ascending to the summit of Volcan San Martin. From May 

 14 to 16 they were at Santiago Tuxtla. They were occupied princi- 

 pally with mammals, birds being collected mainly at Tlacotalpam 

 and Catemaco. Their specimens have been studied in preparing this 

 report and, in a number of instances, have afforded interesting com- 

 parative data with our own notes of the present day. 



In 1900 and 1901 Percy W. Shufeldt and A. E. Colburn made a 

 collection of birds at Paso Nuevo, Buena Vista, and La Buenaventura, 

 considerably higher up on the Rio San Juan. Part of their speci- 

 mens are in the United States National Museum, while others went 

 to the Museum of Comparative Zoology, the American Museum of 

 Natural History, and elsewhere. The region they covered lies actually 

 outside the limits of the present paper, but specimens from their 

 collections have been among the most useful available for comparison. 



ITINERARY 



On March 5, 1939, the work covered in this report had its beginning 

 when, in company with Richard H. Stewart, staff photographer of 

 the National Geographic Society, I left the city of Veracruz by train 

 for Alvarado, a town situated among the low, brush-grown sand- 

 hills, evidently ancient dunes, that for miles to the south extend 

 along the coast. At Alvarado we transferred to the launch Eusto- 

 lita, which carried us across the Bay of Alvarado and up the Rio 

 Papaloapan to the fine old town of Tlacotalpam (pi. 26, fig. 1). This 

 place is located on an open plain of slight elevation, with many shal- 

 low ponds and grassy marshes interspersed with thickets and low 

 trees and broad areas of open savanna. The following morning, in 

 the small launch or canoa La Delfinita, we continued up the river, 

 crossing almost immediately by a narrow channel choked with water- 

 hyacinth that cut across to the Rio San Juan, and then by other 

 channels into that branch of the San Juan Delta known as the Rio 

 San Agustin. 



