SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF 



COSTA RICA. 



By Robert Ridgway. 



[With 5 plates.] 



One beautiful morning in May, 1867, after a voyage across the 

 placid Caribbean Sea, beneath a sky equally blue and serene, the 

 passengers on board the Pacific Mail side-wheel steamer Henry 

 Ohauncy came out on deck to view the scene on shore. We had 

 clocked at the port of Aspinwall (now Colon), the Caribbean terminus 

 of the Panama Railway. Many of the group had never before seen 

 the glorious vegetation of the Tropics, and to them the view was 

 startling in its novelty and beauty. To the writer, the effect was 

 such that it had ever since been his desire to see again, but under 

 conditions favorable to a more intimate acquaintance, the virgin 

 forest of the so-called Torrid Zone. 



The opportunity so much desired and so eagerly anticipated did 

 not occur until nearly two score years later, when, on the morning of 

 December 8, 1904, after another voyage across the calm expanse of 

 the Caribbean, the densely wooded mountains of Costa Rica loomed 

 high among the clouds, a majestic background to the varied scene. 

 Our steamer had arrived during the night at Puerto Limon, the 

 Caribbean seaport of Costa Rica; a neat little city, whence are 

 shipped to northern markets the coffee and bananas which are the 

 chief exports of the little Republic. Far beyond the town, but seem- 

 ingly only a few miles distant, the scarred and calcined summit of 

 the Volcan de Turrialba constituted a conspicuous landmark, every 

 detail sharp and distinct through the transparent atmosphere. On 

 either hand stretched the coast line; to the right, snowy breakers 

 dashing over coral reefs, the exquisitely wooded little island of 

 La Uvita, just offshore, resting like an emerald on the sapphire 

 waters of the bay ; to the left a wall of giant grasses, except where 

 the tall plumes of coconut palms fringed the higher portions of the 

 shore line. 



The train for San Jose, the capital, nestling two-thirds of a mile 

 above the sea among the mountains of the interior, leaves for its des- 



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