ALAJUELA AND THE VOLCANO POAS 341 



sort of cornstarch), tortillas and coflFee. The sky had become 

 quite threatening during the latter part of our walk and by 

 this time it had begun to rain, blotting out the beautiful 

 landscape for the rest of the day. 



On the way down to El Brazil we saw four mot-mots or 

 "bobos" (fools) as the Costa Ricans call them {Momotus 

 lessoni). These are highly characteristic tropical American 

 birds, about the size of a pigeon with orange breast, blue- 

 green wings and blue-green on the top of the head. They 

 have the curious habit of stripping the barbules from each 

 side of the two long tail feathers, leaving a tuft at the end 

 of the feather and a stretch of bare rib which varies in length 

 with individual birds. The effect of these mutilated feathers 

 as the bird, sitting otherwise motionless, moves its tail from 

 side to side, is very curious and somewhat resembles the 

 pendulum of a clock. 



With the exception of a few foreigners engaged in trade 

 in Alajuela, the nearest English-speaking neighbors were 

 at the finca of La Esperanza, four miles away, where the 

 Clark family were frequent visitors. A. often accompanied 

 them thither. At the time of our visit to Costa Rica this 

 finca was still largely planted with coffee, but there was also 

 a great number of grapefruit trees and it was the intention 

 to replace the coffee with citrus fruit, over the entire finca. 

 The house had been placed on a little knoll looking down the 

 valley of the Rio Grande de Tarcoles to the gulf of Nicoya, 

 It stood over a half a mile from the high road, and the ap- 

 proach from the main gate ran through a beautiful avenue 

 of manzana rosa or rose-apple trees, belonging to the Myr- 

 tles. This tree grows In many places in Costa Rica and its 

 fruit was often seen in the market at Cartago, but we saw no 

 other avenue of it to be compared with this one at La Es- 

 peranza. The trees were forty feet or more in height. The 

 old leaves are dark green and extremely shiny, the young 



