Birds of Nicaragua 287 
should be set free from the worries and responsibilities attend- 
ing the supervision of gold-mines, the products of which 
were just at that tantalising point, on the verge between 
profit and loss, that made their superintendence a most irk- 
some and anxious duty. The difficulty of the task was vastly 
increased by the capital of the company having beemoriginally 
wasted in the erection of machinery that proved to be use- 
less; so that financial questions constantly retarded the 
completion of the works. This book has not been written, 
however, to tell the story of the struggles of a mining engineer ; 
and I turn aside with pleasure from this slight digression to 
say what little more I have to tell of my natural history 
experiences. 
I did not, until near the conclusion of my stay, commence 
collecting the skins of birds, contenting myself with watching 
and noting their habits. I obtained the skins of ninety-two 
species only; but small as this collection was, it proved an 
important addition to the knowledge of the bird-fauna of 
Nicaragua. The eminent ornithologist, Mr. Osbert Salvin, 
published in the Jbzs for July 1872 a list of seventy-three 
species that I had up to that time sent to England. Alto- 
gether, only one hundred and fifty species, including those 
that I had collected, were known from Nicaragua. Frag- 
mentary as our knowledge is, it is sufficient, in Mr. Salvin’s 
opinion, to indicate, with tolerable accuracy, to which of the 
two sub-provinces of the Central American fauna the forest 
region of Chontales belongs. The birds I sent to England 
proved nearly conclusively that the Costa-Rican sub-pro- 
vince included Chontales in Nicaragua, and that the boundary 
between it and the sub-province of Southern Mexico and. 
Guatemala must be sought for more to the north-west. 
Of the southern species, which in Chontales find their 
northern limit, so far as is known, there are in my small 
collection thirty-two species, whilst belonging to the northern 
sub-province, and not known to range further south, there 
are only seven species; showing that the connection with 
Costa Rica and the south is much closer than that with 
Guatemala and the north, and that the boundary between 
the two sub-provinces is not found, as was supposed, in the 
depression of the isthmus occupied by the great lakes and 
their outlet the San Juan river, but must exist further 
