X74 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM Vol. 8T 



ITINERARY 



At 7 o'clock on the morning of October 16, 1937, the S. S. Stuyvesani 

 of the Royal Netherlands Steamship Co. came slowly in to the 

 crowded dock at the port of La Guaira, Venezuela, where with the 

 assistance of Louis B. Mazzeo, American vice-consul, free entry for 

 my equipment for scientific work was soon arranged. Shortly after 

 111 was on the way to Caracas by auto up the winding road that 

 leads across the steep, dry, stony slopes of the coastal mountain range, 

 partly covered with low, thorny scrub, and partly bare except for 

 clumps of grassy vegetation. Near the summit, where the clouds 

 hung low, the land is productive and vegetation more abundant. 



Through the friendly cooperation of the American Minister, the 

 Honorable Meredith Nicholson, and the gracious assistance of Dr. E. 

 Gil Borges, Mmistro de Relaciones Exteriores of Venezuela, neces- 

 sary permissions for travel and for the collection of specimens were 

 quickly arranged. The Mioister of the Departmento de Agricultura 

 y Cria, Senor H. Parra Perez, and the Director de Tierras Baldias, 

 Bosques y Aguas, Senor Miguel Parra Sanoja of the same department, 

 were interested in my proposed studies and afforded the fullest co- 

 operation. I had also the friendly assistance of Dr. Henri Pittier, 

 the veteran botanist, long a friend and correspondent of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution. While these arrangements were going forward 

 I had opportunity to visit the bird market in Caracas, the Museum 

 Bolivar, where I saw the sundial said to have been made by Humboldt, 

 and many other historical objects of interest, and to become familiar 

 with the city. 



On October 20 I moved to Maracay where field work began the 

 followmg day, when Ventura Barnes, Jr., took me to an old estate 

 at La Providencia, 10 kilometers east of Maracay. Here I worked 

 through an area of level land divided between small, open fields and 

 woodland in which much of the undergrowth had been cleared. Be- 

 yond lay rolling hills grown with grass, with thick scrub filling the 

 valleys. My first birds were obtained in this area. 



On October 22, Dr. Pittier, strong and active at the age of 80, took 

 me into the great Parque Naciondl, recently established by the 

 Venezuelan Government as a wildlife reserve under the Department 

 of Agi-iculture. It was my privilege here to make a preliminary survey 

 of the birdlife of this vast area where few observations had been 

 made before, with highly interesting results that are detailed in the 

 pages that follow. 



A paved auto road extends through the park from the southern 

 border at Guamitas, 14 kilometers northwest of Maracay, over the 

 mountain range of the Cordillera de la Costa, down through broken 

 foothills and across the lowlands on the north to the sea, with a 



