4 Annals of the Carnegie' Museum. 



cases for more than a cursory and preliminary survey. It is accord- 

 ingly a matter for self -congratulation that we find ourselves able to 

 present herewith in integral form, and to such good advantage, the 

 scientific results of an intensive faunal study of a restricted area in 

 Colombia, the Santa Marta region. No other part of that country has 

 received such long-continued attention from a trained collector as has 

 this particular region from the junior author, as Dr. Frank M. Chap- 

 man justly remarks. Its geographical position, lying as it does right 

 at the gateway, so to speak, from the plains of Venezuela into northern 

 Colombia, its semi-insular character, the isolation of its mountains, and 

 their different trend and greater height as compared with the neigh- 

 boring Andean system, all combine to make the study of its bird-life 

 a problem of exceptional interest. The general laws and principles 

 laid down by Dr. Chapman in his recent work on " The Distribution 

 of Bird-Life in Colombia" (to which the present paper may be re- 

 garded as in a sense complementary) have been confirmed and ampli- 

 fied by this study, which is offered as the first of a series of contribu- 

 tions to regional South American ornithology to be published by the 

 Carnegie Museum. 



The present joint paper is based primarily on the large collection 

 of birds made in the Santa Marta region by the junior author from 

 191 1 to 191 5, by far the greater part of which is deposited in the 

 Carnegie Museum, the balance having mostly gone to the Academy of 

 Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, with a few specimens still remaining 

 in the collector's hands. This collection was made at various eleva- 

 tions from sea-level up to snow-line, and in all the various kinds of 

 habitat represented. It is much to be regretted that our knowledge of 

 the bird-life of the southern slopes of the mountains, and of the valley 

 at their base, still remains so meager, but it is believed that even in 

 this field sufficient work has been done to permit us to judge of its 

 faunal relationships. In addition to the collection made by the junior 

 author, the material received by the Carnegie Museum from Mr. 

 Herbert H. Smith, and not previously reported upon, is here formally 

 listed. There have also been available the specimens of Mr. Smith's 

 collecting in the American Museum of Natural History, as well as 

 many of those sent in by Mr. Wilmot W. Brown to the Bangs Collec- 

 tion, which have been freely consulted where necessary in the prepara- 

 tion of this report. In this connection the literature of the subject has 



