Sumichrast.] 222 [December 16, 



ancient inhabitants of the countrj'. An old citizen informed me that 

 about forty years ago, while he and two of his neighbors were at 

 work constructing or repairing a road near Avhat is called the Rolling 

 Bank in Swanton, they found a human skeleton of gigantic size. It 

 was uncovered by the scraper with which they were removing the 

 soil. The skull was of such dimensions that one of the men, although 

 himself of large proportions, readily placed his head within its cavity. 

 The bones, or a portion of them, were examined by a physician, and, 

 according to his estimate, were such as to indicate that the individual 

 to whom they belonged must have been from seven and a half to 

 eight feet in height. These, perhaps, were likewise the remains of 

 one of those more ancient people, who once inhabited the region, and 

 of whom it may be fitly said, " there were giants in the earth in those 

 days." 



Such are a few points which I trust will interest others as much as 

 they have me, respecting this old home of portions of at least two of 

 the aboriginal races of the Continent. Time fails me to give ad- 

 ditional details for the present. 



December 16, 1868. 



The President in the chair. Forty-two members present. 



Dr. T. M. Bi-ewer presented a paper on the geographical 

 distribution of the native birds of the Department of Vera 

 Cruz, communicated to the Smithsonian Institution by Prof. 

 F. Sumichrast, and with the consent of that Institution trans- 

 lated for the Memoirs of the Society. 



He regarded it as a paper of great importance, presenting with 

 remarkable precision the interesting features of that portion of JNIex- 

 ico, showing that with the altitude of the country the species of its 

 birds vary in a remarkable manner. On the seashore, in the low, 

 hot lands, below the height of about two thousand feet, occurs a belt 

 or zone which the writer characterizes as the Hot Region. Within 

 this are found exclusively tropical birds. West of this is another 

 belt of territory rising from two thousand to five thousand feet, which 



