72 FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY ORNITHOLOGY, VOL. I. 



with its base at the very door, on the one hand, a stream of 

 water on the other, a closer environment of useful and ornamental 

 trees and herbs, seclusion, books, a piano, a table well supplied from 

 two continents, finding all this at San Fernando, and enjoying it, 

 we voted down the "Swiss Family Robinson" and set up a real ideal. 



The north shore of Lake Atitlan, near Panajachel, which was our 

 next stopping place, is too precipitous to follow, except where two 

 small streams have worn out short valleys and made a little alluvial 

 soil. Bird life was confined almost entirely to these valleys and the 

 lake, which is about 5,000 feet above the sea, and has a depth of 

 about i.ooo feet. Here we first saw the mockingbird (M. g. guate- 

 malensis] , the whippoorwill (A . chiapensis) , the grebe (C. d. brachyp- 

 terus) and the fine, large humming-bird (C. rufus). We took two 

 days for the journey from the lake to Tecpam, in order that we might 

 collect some things that we had been unable to obtain previously. 

 Several miles of this road follow a barranca having a stream at the 

 bottom, and its sides well wooded with oak and pine. In this place 

 we secured the ant-eating woodpecker (M. formicivorous] , the black- 

 eared bushtit (P. melanotis) and the swift (S. zonaris). The altitude 

 of this gorge is about 6,500 feet. 



The region about Tecpam presents a striking contrast, in both 

 fauna and flora, to the lowlands. In the vicinity of the town 

 the land is mainly under cultivation, but towards the northwest, only 

 a few miles away, rises Sierra Santa Elena to the height of about 

 10,000 feet, covered with forest to its summit. The altitude of the 

 town is about 7,500 feet. As one ascends the mountain he finds 

 the long-leaved pine to be the common tree between 8,000 and 9,000 

 feet, but above the latter elevation cypress trees exclude all other 

 varieties. We passed a night and a day as guests of Sr. Don Guil- 

 lermo Thorn, who lives on the mountain at about 9,500 feet, and is 

 the only practical forester in the republic. Here, again, we found 

 a real home, having all the comforts desired by refined people, in 

 the heart of a cypress forest five days' journey by ox-team from the 

 source of supplies, Guatemala City. Here we found the junco (/. 

 alticola), the kinglet (R. s. darus), the green toucan (.4. prasinus), 

 the thrush (C. f. alticola} , the red warbler (E. versicolor] and other 

 species not seen elsewhere. The cypress woods are quite impene- 

 trable without an ax. Fallen trees, thick bushes and long dripping 

 moss make it almost impossible to move out of the cleared paths. A 

 longer stay at Tecpam would have been profitable, but three days 

 were all that could be spared for it. 



