1917.] Chapman, Distribution of Bird-life in Colombia. 167 



In that part of Colombia lying south of Popayan, where the Andean 

 system retains much the same character it possesses in Ecuador, there 

 are no less than twenty moimtains which rise above the lower level of the 

 Paramo Zone. 



The Eastern Andes possesses some twenty mountain summits of suffi- 

 cient altitude to support a Paramo Zone fauna, but few of them have been 

 explored. This zone also exists in the Andes of Merida, Venezuela, and in 

 the Santa Marta group.^ 



The proportion of paramo species in the last-named range is higher than 

 that of any of the three lower zones, a fact which possibly is due to the open 

 nature of the haunts of paramo birds and their consequent exposure to 

 storms which may transport them considerable distances. 



If we except so cosmopolitan a genus as Gallinago, the species of the 

 Paramo Zone of Colombia are all of southern origin. All the genera repre- 

 sented reach sea-level in the south Temperate Zone and most of them are 

 absent from the Tropical Zone. Cinclodes, Upucerthia and J\hiscisaxicola 

 are admirable examples of South Temperate Zone genera which, with 

 increasing altitude, ha\-e extended their range northward to the very limits 

 of the Paramo Zone. Even the Condor, a sea-level bird of Patagonia, 

 makes what we think of as his true home on the summits of the Northern 

 Andes, where the factors which determine zonal boundaries keep him to his 

 true level quite as efPectively as they do a diminutive Marsh Wren. Like 

 that of the Temperate Zone, the life of the Paramo Zone in Colombia re- 

 quires no faunal subdivisions. Allen and jNIiller's work on Santa Isabel 

 shows that the Central Andes, as the topography of the region indicates, 

 is the main northward extension of the Andean system. Muscisaxicola 

 Columbiana and Upticerthia excelsior Columbiana, both representing genera 

 hitherto unknown in Colombia, were found by them in numbers. Doubtless 

 additional work in the Paramo Zone of the Central Andes would reveal the 

 presence of other southern forms. 



Birds of the Paramo Zone. 



Family Charadriidoe Family Cathartida 



Gallinago nobilis Sarcorhamphiis gryphus 



■' Family Trochilidce 



Family Anatid<B Pterophanes temmiucki 



Nettion andium Vestipedes paramillo 



1 The occurrence of Cinclodes in the Paramo Zone of the Santa Marta group and of the Andes 

 near Merida, Venezuela, is surprising. No other species of this genus is known from nearer than 

 Ecuador. Possibly the genus will still be discovered in the Colombian Andes. 



