1917.] Chapman, Distribution of Bird-life in Colombia. 13 



Bogota and in the Llanos to the east by T. H. Wheeler, but apparently no 

 special report has appeared on this gentleman's labors, and I am unaware 

 of their scope, but it seems probable that many of his specimens were 

 collected by natives. In 1899 Dr. Witmer Stone published a report (Proc. 

 Acad. N. S. Phila., 1899, pp. 302-313) on some 77 species collected by Dr. 

 J. W. Detwiler, chiefly from Honda to Ibagiie, and this short paper appears 

 to be the only one which has been issued on scientifically collected birds 

 from the Bogotd region; but even this collection evidently contains many 

 native-made skins. 



There are doubtless few regions in the world where accuracy in labeling 

 specimens is of more importance than in that area whence came the so- 

 called 'Bogota' skins. In its most restricted sense this area, extending 

 from the Magdalena Valley on the west to the base of the Andes on the east, 

 contains four life-zones and two distinct basal faunas. While a dataless 

 specimen may help indicate the character of the bird-life of the region as a 

 whole, it throws no light on faunal or zonal limits or on geographic variation 

 under the strikingly different environmental conditions which prevail in 

 this part of Colombia. Not only does the absence of data, particularly 

 of altitude, make Bogota skins of no value in determining the limits of zones 

 and faunas, but in many instances it has been discovered by comparison 

 with fresh material, that the old, native-made skins have undergone so 

 striking a change in color that they fail to represent properly the species 

 to which they belong, and for purposes of exact comparison they are there- 

 fore not only worthless but misleading. 



I shall make no attempt to list in detail the many papers consisting 

 merely of descriptions of new birds based on Bogota skins. Our own brief 

 explorations show that new species are still to be found in sight of the 

 city of Bogota itself, and for many years there will no doubt continue to be 

 additions to the list of recognized species to which the type-locality ' Bogota' 

 is ascribed. 



The Limits of the ' Bogotd' Region. — While the known ranges of the 

 birds contained in even the earliest Bogotd collections make it evident that 

 the native collectors worked at comparatively great distances from the 

 city of Bogota, so far as I am aware no definite information of the regions 

 visited by them has been published. The following facts were gathered 

 from dealers and collectors in the city of Bogota during our seventh 

 Colombian expedition : 



The majority of the birds' skins brought in by natives are collected by 

 them within twenty-five miles of the city. Fu^ugasuga to the south, 

 Anolaima, at the border of the Subtropical and Tropical Zones, to the 

 northwest, and Choachi and Fomeque on the eastern slope of the first 



