12 Bulletin American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XXXVI, 



plumes and quills of large birds rather than the entire bodies of small ones, 

 the commerce in 'Bogota' skins has declined, and, although it has not been 

 wholly abandoned, comparatively few birds are shipped at the present 

 time. 



How many species could now be attributed to the Bogota region I have 

 made no attempt to ascertain, the rather vague limits of the region itself 

 making the number of birds assigned to it of no exact scientific importance, 

 but it is safe to say that the "upwards of 700" which Sclater {I. c.) pre- 

 dicted would be found, has been reached and perhaps exceeded. 



Bogota skins, as Sclater remarked, "are easily recognized by persons 

 who have had experience in such matters, the wings and tail being squeezed 

 up into the body and the whole skin pressed together in a manner which 

 gives them a very different appearance from birds brought from any other 

 country." They are collected by natives and even to this day the birds 

 are killed chiefly with the blow-gun, a pellet of clay serving as ammunition. 



The use of this weapon explains why birds like Swifts, Swallows, Hawks, 

 and some of the more elusive thicket-haunters, etc., which cannot readily 

 be killed with it, are but poorly represented in Bogota collections. It is 

 used exclusively for Hummingbirds which are shot as they hover while 

 feeding. Mr. L. E. Miller, while in charge of one of our Colombian 

 expeditions, encountered a native who was collecting in this manner about 

 forty Hununers per day, for the skins of which he received two cents apiece 

 in Bogota. Bogota skins, it should be added for the benefit of those who 

 are not famiUar with them, are not accompanied by data of any kind. 

 Exactly where or when they were taken are therefore matters of conjecture, 

 and their sex can only be assumed when sexual difference in color or size 

 warrants such assumption. 



The distances from Bogota reached by the native collectors have never 

 been stated, so far as I am aware. Sclater was informed that it was prob- 

 ably never "farther than a circuit of one hundred miles around the city," 

 but with our present-day knowledge of the distribution of birds it is evident 

 from an examination of Sclater's list, with its records of Chelidoptera tene- 

 brosa, Cotinga nattereri, and Phrygilus geospizopsis that even at that early 

 date the Llanos to the east, the humid Magdalena Valley to the west, and 

 the Cordilleras from base to summit were visited by the native hunters. 

 So great has been the supply of these Bogota skins that no collection of 

 American tropical birds is without a more or less representative series of 

 them. Exploring naturalists have, therefore, turned their attention to other 

 parts of South America and there appears to have been practically no scien- 

 tific collecting done in the Bogota region. 



The British Museum Catalogue of Birds lists specimens collected near 



