Chapter Seventeen 
ECUADOR 
N the winter of 1937-38 I went to Ecuador—again with Delys— 
in search of some of the delightful birds confined to the Andes, 
which were little known to aviculturists in Europe. I believe that, 
prior to my visit, Walter Goodfellow was the only Englishman to 
go to Ecuador to make a collection of live birds from the Andean 
region, and that was in 1914. 
Away from the towns and railways, traveling conditions had 
undergone no great change since his day, and to get to any of the 
forested regions of the western or eastern Andes it was still neces- 
sary to go on foot or by horse along the same old narrow trails 
that had been in use for generations. 
When we disembarked at Guayaquil, the principal port of 
Ecuador, we were pleasantly surprised to find such a clean, well- 
built town, with parks, promenades, and attractive buildings. It 
stands alongside the River Guyas about thirty miles from its 
mouth. A noticeable feature of the place is its climate, which 1s 
pleasantly cool considering the latitude—only about 3° south. 
This is due to the cool Humboldt current which flows along these 
shores from the Antarctic, and which has had such a tremendous 
influence on the marine animal-life of the west coast. This in turn 
has affected the economy of the adjacent maritime countries, for 
the cool waters produce favorable breeding conditions for 
millions of fish, which not only sustain the population, but attract 
vast flocks of fish-eating birds which produce the valuable guano 
deposits on the coasts and islands of Chile and Peru. Penguins, 
normally residents of the cold Antarctic and sub-Antarctic, are 
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