306 Mr. W. Goodfellow — Ornithological 



an elevation of about 1 1,500 feet, and is bounded by Auti- 

 sana^ Cotopaxi, Quilindana, and other snow-covered peaks, 

 while from the far end of it a view can be gained of the lower 

 forest-covered mountains stretching away down to the rivers 

 forming the head-waters of the Amazon. With the exception 

 of two shepherds^ huts, which are far apart, this valley is un- 

 inhabited, and most of the country for miles around is 

 devastated by eruptions from Cotopaxi. The climate is very 

 cold, and snow fell on several nights during our stay there 

 in December. 



We found Pichincha wonderful collecting-ground, and as 

 it rises above the city of Quito, it is very accessible. At 

 the summit of the crater it is 16,000 feet high, and so just 

 reaches the snow-line, but for 2000 feet above Quito its slopes 

 and valleys are covered with flowering bushes and stunted 

 trees, which teem with birds, Humming-birds predominating. 

 Still higher up grows the wiry " pdramo-grass/^ also the 

 haunt of many varieties, notably Attagis chimborazensis , 

 Gallinago jamesoni, and Notlioprocta carvirostris, while on 

 the cliffs and rocks around the crater the Condors make 

 their home. 



Between the Western Andes and the Pacific coast the 

 whole country is covered with virgin forests, which reach up 

 the mountains to an altitude of 12,000 feet. These are most 

 sparsely inhabited by whites, who are everywhere miserably 

 poor and verging on starvation, a result due to their lack of 

 energy. On a few execrable trails, often impassable, leading 

 down from the mountains, an occasional hut may be met with, 

 but many names printed in large type on WolPs map do not 

 exist at all, or represent a solitary hut, or the spot where a 

 |iut once stood. Our best collecting-ground on this side 

 was at Santo Domingo, in the country of the Colorado 

 Indians, the finest natives we met with, who paint the whole 

 of their bodies a uniform red, with a basket-work pattern of 

 blue over it. This place contains but three huts, for the 

 Indians live far away in the depths of the forests around. 

 Some of the intermediate resting-places at higher altitudes 

 also yielded a great number of birds, but, almost without 



