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them, for as they can unfortunately never become denizens ot

our aviaries, they will not possess much interest for the

aviculturist.


There are many beautiful Tanagers, notabty the Blue¬

shouldered Tauager (Compsocoma victorini) whose home is in very

temperate regions, where if mild during the day, it is very cold

at night. There is also that singularly handsome Toucan

(.Andigena laminirostris ) which inhabits a gloomy region, where

we had sharp frosts nearly every night during the fortnight of

our stay there. Real Gulls, too we found in numbers on the

small solitary lagoons in the cold, devastated and uninhabited

regions around the smoking cone of Cotopaxi, at an altitude of

quite 13,000 ft., and perhaps 150 miles from the coast. These are

points of interest in bird life, that people at home would hardly

credit.


In looking over our collection of .skins (comprising some

700 species, of which 130 are Hummers) I am at once struck

with the fact that there are perhaps not more than a dozen of

them I have seen in captivity at home ; when scores of them

would undoubtedly be easy to keep, and make delightful cage

birds. We should imagine many of them if we saw them in the

dealers’ shops to be perhaps delicate and difficult to keep, when

probably they would have come from some of the temperate

regions of the Andes, and, as far as the climate would be

concerned, could with ease and comfort pass the winter in our

outdoor aviaries.


It is a misfortune that the Ecuadorian birds are so little

known to us, and that the dealers do not endeavour to procure

more birds "for us from there. I am afraid, though, there are

many difficulties in the way which would be hard to overcome.

Iu the first place, live birds could not be shipped direct to our

English ports, as it would be all but impossible to send them

home all the way round Cape Horn ; and the only other route

available is via the Isthmus of Panama, where, I imagine, live

stock would meet with but scant attention from the rail¬

way officials. Still, our dealers might manage it by having

agents in Panama and Colon. Perhaps when the canal is

opened all that will be changed, and many Ecuadorian birds,

at present unknown to us by living specimens, will be quite

familiar objedts in our aviaries. Another great obstacle is the

difficulty of communication from the coast to the interior of

Ecuador. With the exception of the port of Guayaquil, there is

no communication from any port direct to Quito, the capital, and



