308 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1921. 



it true that a greater proportion of the birds are more brightly 

 colored in tropical than in temperate regions. 5 



It is also a very general, but nevertheless wholly erroneous, popu- 

 lar notion that flowers are far more plentiful in tropical than in 

 temperate climates. This may be true to the extent that the num- 

 ber of kinds is much greater ; but even this superiority is very much 

 a question of locality and season. In the dense forests of the humid 

 Caribbean slope of Central America flowers are, as a rule, very 

 little in evidence. There are, however, innumerable species, some 

 of them very beautiful; but they are scattered and rarely if ever 

 form a conspicuous feature in the landscape, except when certain 

 trees are in bloom. In descending from Cartago to Puerto Limon, 

 in May, a very large tree was in flower, forming here and there on 

 the mountain sides solid masses of brilliant yellow which fairly 

 gleamed by contrast with the somber dark green of the surround- 

 ing forest: and in the valley of San Jose a much smaller tree, hav- 

 ing leaves like the catalpa and evidently belonging to the same 

 natural order, also bore bright yellow flowers, and another bigno- 

 niaceous tree, which in the forests near the Pacific coast at- 

 tained a considerable size, displayed large catalpa-like flowers of 

 peach-blossom pink. These, together with a tree morning-glory 

 bearing white flowers, seen at Monte Redondo, were the only con- 

 spicuous masses of bloom observed in Costa Rica. Had we been 

 able to remain on the Pacific slope until after the commencement 

 of the rainy season, however, it is probable that our experience 

 would have been different, for then, with a general revival of vege- 

 tation, that part of the country is said to become exceedingly florif- 

 erous. 6 Many species of orchids, passion flowers, bignoniaceous 

 climbers, and various other kinds of plants produce flowers of bril- 

 liant or beautiful colors, but they are so scattered through the forest 



B In North America north of Mexico there are about 3G6 species of land birds, of which 

 or,, or about 26 per cent, may be called brightly colored. In Costa Rica, with approxi- 

 mately 506 species, 161, or about 27 per cent, may, by the same standard, be called 

 brightly colored. It is quite true that among tropical birds there is in the aggregate a 

 larger number of brightly colored birds, but so there is of dull-colored species also ; in 

 fact, there are in tropical America entire families of birds, some of them including 100 

 or more species, of which practically all are as dull colored as it is possible for a bird 

 to be. It is in the vastly greater variety of bird life that the Tropics excel. In Costa 

 Rica, for example, with an area barely greater than half that of the State of Indiana, 

 there are about 130 more species of land birds than are found in the whole of North 

 America north of Mexico, including Greenland and Alaska. The same great diversity 

 obtains in most other forms of life, especially in the vegetable kingdom, in which the 

 disparity between temperate and tropical regions is incomparably greater, because in 

 both the number of plant species is everywhere many times that in any of the animal 

 kingdoms. 



Rt ferring to the Pacific slope of Nicaragua, the climate and natural productions of 

 which are essentially identical, Thomas Belt (The Naturalist in Nicaragua, p. 41) says: 

 " The barrenness of the landscape is relieved in March by several kinds of trees bursting 

 into flower when they have shed their leaves, and presenting great domes of brilliant 

 color — some pink, others red, blue, yellow, or white, like single-colored bouquets. One 

 looked like a gigantic rhododendron, with bunches of large pink flowers." 



