IECEMBER 27, 1899 VoL. I, pp. 83-84 
PROCEEDINGS 
OF THE 
NEW ENGLAND ZOOLOGICAL CLUB 
THE GRAY-BREASTED WOOD WRENS OF THE 
SIERRA NEVADA DE SANTA MARTA. 
BY OUTRAM BANGS. 
In the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia, two very dis- 
tinct forms of wood wren occur. One is the wide-ranging South 
American species, Henicorhina leucophrys, which is a common 
inhabitant of the dense mountain forest of the Sierra up to an 
altitude of 8000 feet. The other, a new species, lives in the high 
mountain tops at 11,000 to 12,000 feet altitude. Of the former 
Mr. Brown has taken a series of over twenty individuals, securing 
specimens at all stations between 3000 and 8000 feet. Of the 
latter he has taken four individuals all in El] Paramo de Chiruqua, 
between 11,000 and 12,000 feet altitude. 
The two birds are very different, and I find no indication of 
their intergrading. They afford another splendid instance of that 
distribution of bird life in the lofty mountains of northern South 
America, where two closely related and representative, though 
perfectly distinct, species occupy areas of different altitude in the 
same mountains and occur one above the other. Several instances 
of this kind of distribution have already been referred to, by me, 
among the birds of the Sierra Nevada, and strangely enough, in 
every case, the mountain form appears to be specifically different 
from the lowland form, though clearly an off-shoot from it. 
The differences between the two wood wrens of the Sierra 
Nevada de Santa Marta are briefly as follows. 
