Notes from a Traveler in the Tropics i6i 



ends abruptly and is succeeded by a flat desert so absolutely devoid of life that 

 the slow-moving sand crescents, which by hundreds cluster on its eastern half, 

 seem its only animate forms. 



Beyond this plain the way lies through a fiercely arid range, with reddish 

 rocks sculptured by sand-blasts into weird, fantastic shapes. Far below, the 

 Chile River winds through a ribbon of green which, gradually widening, be- 

 comes the beautiful valley of Arequipa. 



My home in Arequipa was in a garden where White-throats sang through- 

 out the day; House- Wrens trilled musically; and for two days two Black- 

 headed Goldfinches sang a duel for the possession of a mate who, on the third 

 day, was seen carrying nesting material into the upper branches of a large 

 cypress. A pair of small Doves had selected the same tree for a nest-site, and 

 their curious little grunting notes came from the heart of it. There was a small 

 Flycatcher {Ornithion) with an abrupt, exclamatory call, a Warbler (Dacnis), 

 and two species of Hummingbirds, while hundreds of the same species of 

 Swallow seen in Lima gave life to the air. 



After a short stay at Arequipa, the journey to the tableland was continued. 

 The railway at once leaves the irrigated district, with its fields of rye, barley, 

 corn, and alfalfa, bounded by fig trees and willows, to climb the slopes of 

 Cha-Chani, dotted with a species of organ-pipe-like cactus which continues to 

 an altitude of about 9,500 feet. 



At about 1 1 ,000 feet, the bunch-grass which characterizes the tableland or 

 puna of Peru, affording pasture to its millions of sheep, llamas, and alpacas, 

 appears. The slopes soon give way to level stretches, with marshes, streams, 

 and lakes, and we now enter a region of surprising interest to the ornithologist, 

 for these apparently desolate heights, lying between twelve and thirteen 

 thousand feet above the sea, support a wealth of bird-life. 



We may see a Puna Flicker, or even a troop of twenty or thirty of them go 

 bounding over the puna, and we will recognize them at once by their white 

 rump and characteristic flight, but the smaller land-birds are not to be seen 

 from the window of a moving train. We shall not, however, go far after reach- 

 ing the tableland without passing some marshy, boggy spot (there is one just 

 before reaching Crucero Alto at an altitude of 14,688 feet) where we shall be 

 surprised by seeing what is apparently a flock of tame Geese. Some of them 

 may stand and watch us pass at a distance of not more than forty yards, and 

 it is only when others take wing that we realize that they are in truth wild 

 Geese. Then we may discover less conspicuous species near them — Ducks of 

 several kinds, Coots, Herons and Ibises, the last two very closely resembling 

 and obviously representing our North American Black-crowned Night Heron 

 and Glossy Ibis respectively. 



A few miles beyond Crucero, the track runs between two beautiful lakes. 

 On July I, 191 6, in the heart of a Peruvian winter, when first I saw them, snow 

 extended down the mountain slopes to their margins, but it was now midsum- 



