I/O A YEAR OF COSTA RICAN NATURAL HISTORY 



rower at the northern than at the southern end. The 

 stretch of railroad track within the crater was rather less 

 than half a mile long. From the station a cart road de- 

 scended by a series of zigzags to an iron bridge spanning 

 the Reventazon and continued downstream to the Indian 

 settlement of Tucurrique. Another road from the station 

 ascended the sloping sides of the crater and, reaching the 

 rim, traversed more level country to the village of Juan 

 Villas distant about two miles from the railroad. There 

 were thus three easily accessible levels, that of the railroad 

 at 3300 feet, that of the village at 4000 feet (1220 meters) 

 and that of the river bottom at 2500 feet (760 meters). The 

 vegetation of these three levels differed much, the region 

 around the village being largely under cultivation, that of 

 the river bottom most undisturbed, with of course corre- 

 sponding differences in the fauna. It is logical therefore to 

 group our observations in connection with these levels. 



Alongside the railroad station stood the restaurant man- 

 aged by Mrs. Ridgway, an American, where the train 

 leaving San Jose each morning for Limon stopped about 11 

 o'clock for breakfast. Here we too had our meals. We 

 usually slept and worked, when not collecting, in a little 

 cabin across the tracks from the station and some fifty feet 

 above them, on the low southern rim of the crater. It con- 

 tained two tiny rooms, not communicating but having each 

 a door to a little porch, and looked like a cozy doll's house as 

 it nestled close to a huge tree whose branches partly over- 

 hung it. Behind were two more trees, heavily draped with 

 Tillandsia. These trees had nothing like the spread of 

 branches of some of our oaks or sycamores but they were 

 immensely tall, the stem being bare of branches for many 

 feet above the ground — -a condition due to the crowding in 

 the forest and the effort each tree must make to reach light 

 and air. Now that the forest had been cut down around 



