Birds and Reptiles of Quito. 107 



of our carrion crows, magpies, and ravens — a tribe of birds 

 widely distributed over the rest of the world, but entirely 

 absent in South America." The condor appears on the 

 gold coins of New Granada and Chile. Of Trochilidw 

 there are hosts. The valley swarms with these "winged 

 jewels" of varied hues, from the emerald green of Pichin- 

 cha to the white of Chimborazo. They build long, purse- 

 like nests by weaving together fine vegetable fibres and 

 lichens, and thickly lining them Avith silk-cotton. In this 

 delicate cradle, suspended from a branch, the female lays 

 two eggs, which are hatched in about twelve days. The 

 eggs are invariably white, with one exception, those of a 

 species on the Upper Amazon, wliich are spotted. The 

 young have much shorter bills than their parents. The 

 humming-bird is exclusively American : the nearest form 

 in the Old World is the nectarinia, or sunbird. Other 

 birds most commonly seen in the valley are : Cyanocitta 

 turcosa (Jay), Poecilothraupis atricrissa^ Pheuticiis chryso- 

 gaster^ Chlorospingus superciliaris, Buthraupis chlorona- 

 ta^ Tanagra Darwini^ Diibusia selysia, Buarremon lati- 

 nuchus, and B. assimilis. The only geese in the valley are 

 a few imported from Europe by Seiior Aguirre, of Chillo, 

 and these refuse to propagate. 



Reptiles are so rare in the highlands the class can hard- 

 ly be said to be represented. During a residence of near- 

 ly three months in the Quito Yalley we saw but one snake. ^' 

 N'evertheless, we find the following sentence in such a re- 

 spectable book as Bohn's Hand-book of Modern Geogra 

 phy : " The inhabitants of Quito are dreadfully tormented 

 by reptiles, which it is scarcely possible to keep out of the 

 beds !" Of frogs there are not enough to get up a choir, 



* Herpetodryas carinatus, which we observed also at Guayaquil and on tlio 

 Maranon. We procured two or three species from the natives, and s>everal 

 new forms from Pallatanga, on the west slope. 



