30 Annals of the Carnegie Museum. 



antly received by the natives. This was about the middle of May. 

 Pueblo Viejo is situated in a deep valley surrounded by mountains. 

 On the east side of the village the mountain slopes are clothed with a 

 coarse grass, on which the cattle of the Indians graze. On this grassy 

 slope, high up, I collected swifts when the fog or clouds hung low; 

 this was the only time I could get near them. On the west side of the 

 village is a fine, swift mountain stream, full of rocks, and beyond this 

 a high, symmetrical, cone-shaped mountain towers up, covered with a 

 dangerous saw-grass, which cuts like a knife and is most difficult to 

 traverse except by the aid of a machete. A peculiar thing about this 

 mountain is that water flows from its summit and can be seen glisten- 

 ing in the afternoon sun. No one has ever climbed it. On the north- 

 west rises a very high mountain, which is densely forested to its sum- 

 mit. To the south of the village the country is lower, but well wooded, 

 and in places swampy. 



"The inhabitants of Pueblo Viejo are engaged in cattle-raising, 

 farming, and trading with the Indians. They raise coffee, sugar-cane, 

 and bananas. About a mile up the valley from Pueblo Viejo is San 

 Antonio, the conditions being practically the same at both places, and 

 the inhabitants similarly engaged. The strip of woods along the river 

 between the two places is a famous resort for the deadly poisonous 

 snake Craspedocephalus lanccolatus, known commonly as the fer-de- 

 lance. I collected some fine specimens of this and other species of 

 snakes. The Indians lose many cattle from snake-bites every year, 

 not to mention human lives. Most of my work on this trip was done 

 about Pueblo Viejo and the other villages higher up, and birds and 

 mammals being plentiful there, I brought out a fine collection, includ- 

 ing a number of new forms." 



We interrupt Mr. Brown's narrative at this point to insert, as an 

 interesting sidelight, some additional information which we quote 

 from an article by Mr. Bangs (Auk, XVI, 1899, 136) : 



" Travelling in the Sierra Nevada is at best slow and laborious and 

 in the rainy season is harder still. Mr. Brown, in order to go as 

 light as possible, carried no tent with him, and cut down his outfit 

 in other ways till much too small for his comfort. Night after night 

 he slept out with no shelter, wet to the skin by the terrific thunder 

 storms that rage in these mountains nearly continuously throughout 

 the spring. His one pair of shoes was soon worn out by the rough 



