250 A YEAR OF COSTA RICAN NATURAL HISTORY 



had previously seen in Costa Rica. One was bright green, 

 about four feet long; it was lying dead in the road. The 

 second, apparently of the same species, glided into the 

 grass; the third was smaller, mottled brown in color. All 

 three were harmless. By the roadsides were many melas- 

 tomaceous trees, lengua de vaca, which also occurred com- 

 monly at Cartago, and on some of the higher trees were 

 nests of the oropendolas. 



One man whom we met along the road told Professor 

 Tristan he knew what we were doing — we were collecting 

 butterflies (we collected none this day) to print them upon 

 muslin and thus give the latter its decorative pattern! Sixty 

 years earlier the Brazilians gave the same explanation to 

 Wallace of his actions on the Amazon. 



North and west of the town the country ascended in gentle 

 swells and low rounded hills, intersected by little streams 

 entering the Rio Colorado. Along these streams were bright 

 green pastures extending high up on the hills, giving the 

 surroundings a soft and billowy appearance, softer, smoother 

 and greener than we saw elsewhere in Costa Rica. The 

 hillsides were formerly forest-covered and here and there 

 single trees had been left standing so that the effect was 

 very park-like. Here in July afternoons before the usual 

 rain, flocks of twenty to thirty green parrakeets (probably 

 Conurus finschi) flew screaming over our heads, resting 

 first on one large tree, then on another, their green color 

 rendering them invisible among the foliage. Their most 

 characteristic feature when in flight is the bluntness, even 

 squareness, of the head in front, owing to the shortness of 

 the bill. Professor Tristan told me that this parrakeet does 

 not learn to talk in captivity. A parrot found on the Pacific 

 side talks readily and for this reason is often kept as a pet — 

 there was one next door to Simona's and Mrs. Ridgway 

 at Juan Viiias had one. This Pacific, talking, species {Ama- 



