254



The Bird Market of Caracas.



or twenty birds ; the cages containing these had then to be sent up to

my house, and I would like to mention in regard to this, the absolute

honesty of the Venezuelan peon, boy or man. We simply handed

the cages containing valuable birds to any boy or man standing

about, told him where to take them, and did not trouble further

until he arrived at the house with the birds. These peons, although

very poor and quite uneducated, do not know what dishonesty is,

and can be trusted with anything valuable—gold, silver, coins, no

matter what; they never fail to account for whatever has been

entrusted to them, and I think that this delightful feature in their

character is one that calls for special notice, as it is quite unique

and contrary to what is generally supposed to be the case by people

who do not know Venezuela.


Caracas lies 3,000 feet above sea level in a wide, fertile and

sub-tropical valley, and is only about 6 miles from the coast as the

crow flies. The valley is surrounded by hills beyond which are other

valleys, some hotter, some cooler, and within comparatively short

distances from the Capital are hot, low-lying plains, while the higher

elevations have a temperate climate, with very cold nights. It is

thus clear that the variety of birds from the immediate neighbour¬

hood of Caracas is very great, and although I know South America

from North to South and from East to West, no place that I know

of is a better centre for a bird collector than the Capital of Venezuela.

It will be some indication of this when I say that my brother and I

have brought home to the Zoological Society in only 7 shipments

altogether 130 species of birds, and if those that died on the way

home, or the rarer ones which died before they were sent off, and

those that we saw wild but could not catch and were not offered in

the market—were added, the numbers would be enormously

increased. Sometimes birds had to be kept by us for 6 months or

more out there, before they could be taken home, and it is unavoid¬

able that many should die during this time. The commbn ones

could always be replaced, but the rare birds seldom came into the

market, and when one died, its loss was serious.


It would be of little interest to give a complete list of the

birds we collected and sent home from Caracas, but the following

will give some idea of the variety of those which arrived. The



