1917.] Chapman, Distribution of Bird-life in Colombia. 53 



gula and Grallaria ruficapilla indicated that we had reached the second or 

 Subtropical Zone. 



Beyond this place the country is again more or less thickly settled and 

 coffee plantations have replaced the forest which probably once existed 

 here. Certain birds were abundant but the conditions were obviously 

 unnatural and far from satisfactory to one who would study animal life in 

 an undisturbed environment. Possibly owing to the absence of the luxuri- 

 ant forest which usually occurs at an altitude of from 6000 to 9000 feet, 

 such birds of the Temperate Zone as Semimerula gigas and Sturnella 

 magna meridionalis were encountered as low as 6000 feet. 



At an altitude of 7300 feet, on the line of the railroad from Giradot to 

 Facatativa, one passes through a broad belt of superb first-growth forest, 

 such as doubtless once occupied the slopes now given to agriculture on the 

 Honda trail, but at no other place was primeval forest observed from the 

 railway. Aside, therefore, from the few days at El Consuelo and obser- 

 vations made from mule-back on the road to Facatativa, we did no work 

 in the country lying between Honda and the Bogota Savanna. In the 

 country above Fusugasuga, however, to be presently described, primeval 

 conditions were found and representative collections made of the bird-life 

 of the Subtropical and Temperate Zones of the western slope of the Eastern 

 Andes. Q 



The Bogota Savanna. — Bogota, a locality to which so many species of 

 birds have been attributed, has, as a matter of fact, a comparatively restricted 

 avifauna. Situated at an elevation of 8600 feet, near the southern end of 

 the great Savanna which is so striking and unusual a feature of Colombian 

 Andean topography, and at the western base of the chain which encloses 

 the Savanna at the east, it is in the arid portion of the Temperate Zone. 

 The word arid, as used here, does not necessarily imply sterility, but indi- 

 cates the existence of conditions which prevent forest growth in a zone 

 where, under favorable circumstances, such growth should occur. For 

 example, at the altitude of Bogota on the trail from that city to Fusugasugd, 

 beyond Cibate, luxuriant forest growth is found and, in consequence, the 

 upper limit of the Subtropical Zone here reaches upward to somewhat over 

 9000 feet, or nearly, if not quite, to the divide at El Piiion. 



This forest is obviously due to the heavy rainfall which prevails at that 

 point, just as on the Savanna of Bogota the lack of forest is possibly attribut- 

 able to insufficient rainfall.'^ However this may be, practically the only 

 tree we saw on the Savanna between Facatativa and Cibat€, is the intro- 



1 The rainfall at Bogota is given by Petre ('The Republic of Colombia,' London, 1906) as 42 

 inches for the six months' wet season. 



