xv-i PREFACE. 



accuracy which could not have been attained by any other method 

 that could have been employed.^ Careful observations for altitude 

 were of the first importance in this country. Within its various 

 zones, it contains almost as many climates, and as great a range of 

 temperature as the entire continent ; and, if the collections had no 

 better habitat than "Ecuador" attached to them, scarcely more 

 information would be afforded than if they were said to have come 

 from South America. Through the hearty co-operation of my two 

 assistants, something was obtained from every locality we visited, and 

 every specimen was accurately labelled and catalogued."^ 



In his Vues dcs Cordillhes, Humboldt deplores the small results 

 which have been attained upon high mountain expeditions in the 

 following passage : " Ces excursions penibles, dont les recits excitent 

 generalement I'int^ret du public, n'ofFrent qu'un tres-petit nombre de 

 r^sultats utiles au progres des sciences." This statement has been 

 substantially true, and it has conveyed a reproach alike to the 

 men of science who have 'not investigated the loftier portions of the 

 earth's surface, and to those who have penetrated them without making 

 use of their opportunities. It has commonly been taken for granted 

 that the tracts in the neighbourhood of the snow-line, or rising above 

 it, are either lifeless or are denizened by stragglers. Could the whole 

 of our acquisitions have been presented here, they would have demon- 

 strated that the upper zones of Ecuador — even the tracts closely 

 bordering the snow-line — are far from being lifeless. They would 

 have exhibited forms the most extraordinary, of wondrous diversity ; 

 they would have defined the upper range of many species ; and would, 

 doubtless, have supplied various missing links. I repeat the expres- 



1 Talilos of altitudes and temperatures are given in Travels amongst the Great 

 Andes. 



- In course of setting the insects, various specimens from Macliachi (9800 feet) 

 were mixed with others from the Pacific slopes (7-8000 feet). It was not possible to 

 identify the whole from recollection, and I destroyed those which could not be 

 referred to their proper localities, with the exccjition of the five species described at 

 pp. 25, 26, 40, 50 and fi8. 



