312 Recently published Ornitkolo(jical Works. [Ibis, 



Museuai began a series of systematic expeditions to various 

 parts of tlie Colombia. Tliey continued for five years, and 

 were carried out under tlie direction of Mr. Chapman, who 

 himself visited the country on two occasions— in 1910-11, 

 when he explored the Cauca valley, and in 1913 when he 

 collected in the Bogota neighbourhood. 



The results of the study of the collections amassed during 

 these five years are presented to us in the stout volume 

 before us with an amount of detail and elaboration never 

 previously attempted. 



After a historical introduction and a succinct account of 

 the routes traversed by the eight collecting expeditions, a 

 most valuable and novel analysis of the life-zones and faunal 

 areas of Colombia is worked out. North of Ecuador 

 the Andes is split into three ranges by the two parallel 

 valleys of the rivers Cauca and Magdalena, and while the 

 western or Pacific coast is a region of great humidity, there 

 are other regions, such as that round Cattagone and at the 

 mouth of the Magdelena river on the Caribbean sea, which 

 are excessively arid. 



Mr. Chapman divides Colombia for distributional pur- 

 poses into three ''zones'*' according to their altitude, and 

 the zones are again divided into "faunas" or faunal areas, 

 of which there are five in the tropical and two in the 

 subtropical. The tropical zone extends from sea-level to 

 4500-6000 ft., the subtropical from 4500-6000 ft. to 9000- 

 9500 ft., the temperate from 9000-9500 ft. to 11,000- 

 13,000 ft., the Paramo from 11,000-13,000 to snow-line 

 (15,000 ft.). The distinctness of the faunas and floras of 

 these various zones was a constant source of surprise and a 

 most delightful experience to the author when ascending 

 the various ranges, and some eighty pages, which are devoted 

 to an exposition of the demarcation and the origins of the 

 faunas of the different zones and faunal regions, form 

 perhaps the most fascinating portion of the volume. 



The second half of the work consists of a distributional 

 list of the species and subspecies met with, with the usual 



