180 CLASS AVES. 



it is not ascertained whether it exists in the chain of Summa- 

 Paz, and Chingasa, to the east of Santa-Fd de Bogota. Nei- 

 ther is M. de Humboldt aware whether it is found in the colossal 

 group of the mountains of Santa-Marta. Birds, like plants, 

 are often circumscribed within certain limits, beyond which 

 they are not found, even though the nature of the country and 

 the climate are the same. The condor and the guanacos mu- 

 tually accompany each other through the entire chain of the 

 Andes, from the straits of Magellan to the northern frontiers of 

 Peru, over an extent of above nine hundred leagues. But the 

 guanacos and the vicunna, which inhabit the austral hemisphere 

 exclusively, are no longer found to the north of the ninth degree 

 of latitude, while the condor follows the Cordillera beyond 

 the equator at least three hundred leagues farther than the 

 vicunna. 



Alpine plants present a curious example of identity of spe- 

 cies, notwithstanding the immense distance which intervenes 

 between many of the great mountains of the world. On the 

 Silla of Caraccas, the same hefaria is found which adorns with 

 its purple flowers the mountain declivities of the kingdom of 

 New Granada. How the seed of this beautiful plant came to 

 be dropped on this projecting peak, the only part of the chain 

 on this coast which, from its elevation, is sufficiently cold to 

 permit the existence of the hefaria, woixld be a useless and 

 unphilosophic question, for the first origin of things can neither 

 be a problem of history, nor an object of research to the natu- 

 ralist. It is, however, remarkable that in animals this identity 

 of forms in situations remote from each other, but analogous 

 in climate, is much less observed than in plants. 



The Indians of the Orinoco often mentioned to M. de Hum- 

 boldt, during his navigation up that river, certain large birds of 

 prey, which unfortunately he had no opportunity of seeing. 

 He is of opinion that these may be the two large eagles disco- 

 vered by M. de Sonnini in French Guiana. This naturalist 

 confesses that at first sight he took these birds for condors, but 



