V ° i9^ XV ] Recent Literature. 243 



Up to this time the writers on Colombian ornithology have based their 

 studies almost entirely upon the collections of others, mainly natives, who 

 furnished no information regarding the country in which the specimens 

 were obtained — usually not even definite localities, so that no intelligent 

 consideration of the range or distribution of the species was possible. Dr. 

 Chapman began his investigation in 1911 with a personal trip from Buena- 

 ventura on the Pacific coast to Baranquilla on the Caribbean Sea, travers- 

 ing nearly the whole length of the country down the Cauca and Magdalena 

 Valleys, and crossing two of the three ranges of the Colombian Andes, 

 while two years later he made another trip to the Bogota region, crossing 

 the third range to Villavicencio at its eastern base. He thus obtained an 

 intimate personal knowledge of the country as well as of its most character- 

 istic birds, and was able to direct intelligently the operations of his assis- 

 tants on the six additional expeditions which they conducted, so as to secure 

 the most important returns; while by his personal association with his men 

 in the field on the two trips above mentioned, he was able to instruct them 

 in the object of the explorations and the best methods by which they might 

 be attained. 



Bogota, as is well known, has been since about 1838 a shipping point for 

 bird skins. While these were primarily intended for millinery purposes 

 many found their way into the hands of ornithologists in France and 

 England and himdreds of new species were described with Bogota as their 

 type locality. Of later years it has become evident that most of these 

 specimens did not come from the immediate vicinity of Bogota at all but 

 were brought there by natives who secured them at various more or less re- 

 mote spots often in quite different life zones or faunas. The determination 

 of the actual habitat of such species became, therefore, a primary necessity 

 in working out the distribution of bird-life in Colombia, and in ascertaining 

 the proper relationship of the species and subspecies, and this led to Dr. 

 Chapman's careful investigation of this critical region — a piece of work 

 which in itself is a contribution of the first importance to neotropical orni- 

 thology. We cannot within the limits of this notice consider in detail the 

 numerous interesting problems of local distribution presented by Dr. 

 Chapman, but a few of his more general conclusions may be stated. In the 

 first place he considers that the remarkable similarity in the faima of the 

 Pacific Tropical zone in Colombia and Ecuador, and that of the Amazonian 

 forest, indicates that these regions, now totally separated, are parts of a 

 formerly continuous area and that their fauna is pre- Andean. The evolu- 

 tion of new forms has here, he contends, been practically at a standstill 

 and therefore many species occur on both sides of the mountains today 

 showing no differentiation. The tremendous upheaval of the Andean chain 

 on the other hand has been responsible for the rapid evolution of a host of 

 new forms in accordance with the great changes in topography in the area 

 affected. 



Above the tropics Dr. Chapman recognizes three zones: the Subtropical; 

 the Temperate; and the Paramo. The fauna of the first has been derived 



