J *° 02 3 °] BANGS CHIRIQUI BIRDS I 7 



as ten perched on the grass-covered plain about me. The 

 meadowlark is very common and tame, and its song is very dis- 

 tinct from that of Sturnella magna. Turkey buzzards and king 

 vultures are always to be seen soaring overhead. 



" Upon reaching the foothills, which are covered by a scrubby 

 growth of trees, the trail gradually descends into a valley where 

 the vegetation is much more luxuriant and where one meets 

 again the characteristic birds of the lowland forest, — toucans, 

 jacamars, blue tanagers, red-rumped tanagers, and the like, — as 

 well as the big black and the red-bellied squirrels. After a grad- 

 ual ascent one emerges onto another llano, or plain, like the first 

 but higher. Here I saw the pigmy titlark. This attractive little 

 fellow was a bird of the trail, running along in front of my horse 

 twenty or thirty yards, then taking wing and alighting again, to 

 repeat the performance as I came up. 



"After an hour over this llano the trail descends again to cross 

 a shallow stream, which is wooded, and then begins gradually 

 rising through a sparsely wooded region to the pueblo de Dolega, 

 with its great plantations of cocoa, coffee, sugarcane and bananas, 

 at an elevation of about 700 feet. Many species of birds were to 

 be seen about the plantations — parrots, hummingbirds, grass- 

 quits, red-rumped and blue tanagers being the most conspicuous. 

 Beyond Dolega the trail crosses two rivers with wooded banks 

 where kingfishers, doves and blue herons were seen. Beyond the 

 second river another great llano, gradually ascending, opens out, 

 with here and there a patch of scrubby timber and in other places 

 covered with blackened rocks — said to be lava from the volcano. 

 It affords good pasturage for cattle, but the ride of five hours 

 across it is hot and monotonous. 



"On the further side of the llano, at an altitude of 3500 feet, the 

 trail leaves the plain and passes through valleys and over hills, in 

 a cool luxuriant forest with swiftly running streams and brooks 

 rippling among fern-covered rocks. One begins to see an im- 

 mense number of birds, all of different species from those of the 

 lowlands — water ouzels dart about on the rocks in the foaming, 

 rushing streams, small thrushes \Catharus\ and solitaires are 

 singing everywhere in the jungle and the branches overhead are 



