Amphibians and Rhptilks of Santa IMarta 27 



from low forest to open moorland is sometimes very abrupt, though as a 

 rule gradual, the trees becoming smaller and smaller and gradually giving 

 way to shrubbery and bushes intermixed with coarse grasses. 



Paramo Vegetation: The immense paramos or moor-like tracts of land 

 extending from timber-line to the perpetual snow present many curious 

 types of plants. Naturally the prevailing vegetation is grass, of many spe- 

 cies, but numerous varieties of bushes and shrubs are present, as well as 

 many kinds of annual flowering plants of considerable beauty and bright 

 colors. The most peculiar and characteristic form of the paramo is the 

 great mullein-like plant known as "Frailejon."' of which there seems to be 

 but one species in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, three very different 

 varieties being found in the Sierra Nevada de Chita, in the eastern Andes. 

 The leaves as well as the stalk are thick and woolly. In favorable spots it 

 attains to a considerable size, but I never found it more than five to six 

 feet high in the Santa Marta Mountains. In the eastern Andes it is often 

 seen growing from fifteen to eighteen feet in height, with the trunks from 

 eight to ten inches in diameter. The flower buds are enclosed in a mass of 

 silky wool, of a pale greenish yellow, or golden yellow, very beautiful just 

 as they begin to open, of large size and in clusters of four to eight. Hum- 

 ming-birds feed almost exclusively on these flowers in season, especially 

 Oxypogon, while the seeds furnish the bulk of the food for the many spar- 

 rows of the paramo. 



Mountain Savannas: Great tracts of savanna are present on the south- 

 ern slopes of the Nevada and on the north slope in the Macotama and Rio 

 Ancha valleys, also to a lesser extent in the Palomina, all more or less 

 above 2,000 feet. The cause of these savannas has been a debated question 

 and has not, I believe, been satisfactorily explained in many cases. It is 

 a practical certainty that where such savannas occur above 2,000 feet and 

 are in a zone belonging to, or surrounded by, a forest belt, such as those of 

 the north slope, they are due to deforestation and persistent burning. The 

 fact that in regions of extensive savannas the rainfall and consequent 

 amount of humidity is less is an effect of, rather than a cause for, the pres- 

 ence of the savannas, because the absence of forest growth always lessens 

 the amount of atmospheric condensation. 



Colombia is a country which has been populated in certain sections for 

 many years, and the valley south of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is 

 one of the oldest of these, it having been settled early in the sixteenth cen- 

 tur}\ The town of Valle de Upar was founded before the colonization of 

 North America began. Deforestation and systematic burning, covering a 

 period of from one to four centuries, must inevitably destroy large areas 

 of forest, while the natural flora to follow in such cases would be the hardy 

 grasses which constitute the vegetation of the present savannas. Several 

 instances tending to prove this theory have come under my personal obser- 

 vation, covering a period of but nine years, so that if obvious results can 

 be obtained in that short time, what might not take place in a period cover- 

 ing several centuries. Not only have the southern slopes of the Sierra 



