Birds of Columbia. 117 



Magdalena I was much disappointed. The birds we saw as we 

 went along were Herons, Egrets, Terns, Kingfishers, and Mac- 

 caws, the gaudy plumage and long tails of the latter rendering 

 them striking objects. 



After a journey of three days, we landed at Puerto Nacional, 

 not sorry to leave the heat and mosquitoes of the river. The latter 

 were not so numerous as I had been led to expect ; but we were 

 told, and afterwards experienced it, that they occurred in greater 

 or smaller numbers according to the time of year. 



At the Puerto, after some delay, we obtained five mules, to 

 take ourselves and our goods to Ocafia, a journey taking a 

 cargo-mule two days and a half. A cargo-mule seldom travels 

 more than fifteen miles a day. For the first few miles our road 

 lay over small savannas, tracts of open grassy country sprin- 

 kled with a few stunted trees, or through woods ; we did not 

 enter a forest-region until we began to ascend the mountains. 

 On the savannas the long-tailed Flycatcher [Milvulus tyran- 

 nus) was very common, while hanging from the boughs of the 

 stunted trees were old nests which, I expect, once belonged to 

 these birds. On one of the savannas, we shot Urubitivga 

 meridionalis and Buteogallus aquinoctialis. We never met with 

 either of these fine birds again. In a wood at the foot of the 

 mountains, we shot the little Dacnis leucogenys. 



In the evening, after we had been ascending the moun- 

 tains all the afternoon, we stopped at a shed in the forest, 

 under which we hung our ham.mocks for the night. We were 

 not sorry to have reached the Tierra templada, and to be able 

 to breathe more freely than we had done in the valley below ; 

 the mosquitoes also were gone ; but their place was taken by 

 sandflies, which congregated in great numbers on the bauks 

 of a dashing stream hard by. To be totally free from the 

 attacks of insects is a thing almost unknown in Columbia, 

 except at an altitude of about 9000 feet and upwards, where it 

 is too cold for such plagues to exist. I do not mean to say 

 that they are attacking one all day (though in some localities 

 they do even this) ; but every niglit, whether you may be sleep- 

 ing in a house, hut, shed, or in the open air, one sort or other 

 will find you out — mosquitoes in the lovv country, fleas and 



