18 Bulletin American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XXX^'I, 



reported on. In 1896 and 1897, Hellmayr writes, Gustav Hopke "sent a 

 fair series" from the same district to Count Berlepsch who described several 

 new species in the Ornithologische Monatsberichte, Vol. V, 1897, pp. 173- 

 176, and in Ornis, XIV, Feb. 1907, pp. 347, 361, 365. Mr. Eugene Andre, 

 in 1899, Hellmayr continues, "forwarded a large collection of birds from 

 the environs of Buenaventura and western slope of the Andes above that 

 town, to Comte de Dalmas of Paris. Unfortunately, the greater part of it 

 was subsequently destroyed by accident, and merely a list of Trochilidae, by 

 Messrs. Simon and de Dalmas (Ornis, XI, 1901, pp. 216-224)," is the only 

 publication it produced. 



In February, 1898, Walter Goodfellow and Claud Hamilton landed at 

 Buenaventura and traveled thence to Cali whence they proceeded, via Popa- 

 yan, the Patia Valley, Pasto, etc., to Quito. Such collections as were made in 

 Colombia were lost in transit, but Goodfellow's report (Ibis, 1901, pp. 300- 

 319; 458^80; 699-715; 1902, pp. 59-67; 207-233) on collections subse- 

 quently made in Ecuador, contains an interesting description of the journey 

 through Colombia with occasional observations on the birds observed. 



Menyn G. Palmer's Collections. — Prior to 1910, the most important 

 collections of west Colombian birds, however, have been made by Mervyn 

 G. Palmer who collected in the region between Buenaventura and Cali in 

 1907 and 1908 and on the Upper San Juan and its sources in the latter part 

 of 1908 and 1909. 



The birds believed to be new in the first-named collections were described 

 by Outram Bangs in the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 

 for 1908 (pp. 157-161) and 1910 (pp. 71-76), but the main collection has not 

 yet been reported on. 



The San Juan collection, numbering some 700 specimens of 201 species, 

 fortunately fell into the hands of Hellmayr whose paper on this material 

 (P. Z. S., 1911, pp. 1084-1213), prepared with an exceptionally wide knowl- 

 edge of South American birds, is, if not the most extensive, at least the most 

 satisfactory treatise on the birds of any part of Colombia with which I am 

 familiar. 



From June 19 to July 2, 1904, W. W. Brown, Jr., representing John E. 

 Thayer, collected vertebrates on Gorgona Island, which lies some thirteen 

 miles off the shore of southwestern Colombia. Birds were rare both in 

 species and individuals, examples of only fourteen species being secured. 

 These with two others are reported on by Thayer and Bangs (Bull. Mus. 

 Comp. Zool., XLVI, 1905, pp. 91-98) who describe as new Sula etesiaca, 

 Uruhitinga subtilis, Thamnophilus gorgonm, Cyanerpes gigas, and Ccereba 

 gorgoncB. 



The Santa Marta Region. — The Santa Marta mountains, because their 

 isolation and altitude promised biological results of exceptional interest. 



