CHAPTER VII 



BIRD LIFE OF BARTICA DISTRICT 



Any attempt at thorough monographic treatment of 

 the birds of Bartica district after only a single season's ob- 

 servation is of course impossi])le. Our species catalogues 

 show hundreds of more or less related facts; in one case we 

 have learned of the nest building and incubation, in another 

 of the gradual change of plumage from nestling to adult. 

 But, reserving these for future consideration, there is still 

 possible a review of the whole field, a bird's-eye-view which 

 is interesting, and in some respects quite significant. From 

 this point of view I offer this account of bird life as observed 

 in the vicinity of Bartica, British Guiana. 



In the space of five months, from jNIarch on through 

 July, within a rectangle of clearing and jungle measuring 

 two miles by one-half mile we became acquainted with two 

 hundred and eighty-one species of birds. In the same gen 

 eral area of jungle, Whitely, some years ago, collected two 

 hundred and fifty-four forms. The two lists yield for this 

 limited district, a total of three liundred and fifty-one spe- 

 cies. This is about one-half (45 per cent.) of the birds re- 

 corded from the whole colony of British Guiana, consider- 

 ing these as numbering seven hundred and fifty-two, as given 

 in the latest list of South American species. ' 



If I compare my observations of bird life day after day 

 in the tropics with the memory of corresponding study in 

 our northern woods and fields, I realize at once that both 

 daily and in the aggregate, a greater number of species and 

 individuals were observed in the tropical field of w^ork. 

 There were curious cross resemblances and differences in the 

 two places — these tropical jungles and the woods of New 



^ A list of the Birds of South America, Bradbourne and Chubb, London, 1912. 



