1917.] Chapman, Distribution of Bird-life in Colombia. 9 



Hermano Apolinar has presented us with numbers of specimens, and 

 has secured for us additional specimens of species not satisfactorily repre- 

 sented in our own collections. Notably, Cistothorus apolinari and Asio 

 acci-pitrimts bogotensis. 



We are also under obligations to Mr. D. C. Stapleton, Mr. Charles Miller, 

 Dr. Hamilton Rice, Gen. Rafael Santos, Sr. Jesus Velez, and Mr. Mervyn S. 

 Palmer. 



We should indeed be lacking a sense of appreciation if we did not express 

 our gratitude to the people of Colombia with whom at one time or another 

 and in a thousand nameless ways, we have come in contact. From the 

 peon by the wayside to the owners of haciendas one and all have shown us 

 the most courteous attention. 



When traveling through remote, unsettled regions with a valuable 

 outfit and often considerable sums of money, we have felt as safe (possibly 

 safer!) than when in our own homes. When in camp or at hotels, country 

 inns or posadas, we made no special provision for guarding our equipment 

 and supplies; nevertheless, during the five years of our work we did not 

 suffer the loss of a single item by theft. Indeed, on passing through a 

 certain village where one of our party had previously worked, we were 

 stopped by a native bringing a needle and thread which had been left behind ! 



But especially do I desire, so far as mere words will permit, to pay a 

 tribute to the men with whom it has been my privilege to be associated on 

 our zoological explorations in Colombia: To William B. Richardson, Louis 

 A. Fuertes, Leo E. Miller, Arthur A. Allen, George K. Cherrie, Paul G. 

 Howes, Geoffroy O'Connell, Thomas M. Ring, and Howarth Boyle. To 

 their untiring enthusiasm and whole-souled devotion to the Museum's 

 interests may be credited the most valuable collections of birds and mam- 

 mals which have been bi^ught from any part of South America. 



To Richardson, veteran among collectors in tropical America, was given 

 the exceptionally unhealthful stations on the Pacific coast. Here he suffered 

 from fever and from beri-beri, but with the amazing vitality which has 

 carried him through thirty years of exposure to tropical diseases, he con- 

 tinued work when most men would have succumbed. 



Miller, a novice on our first expedition, showed such resourcefulness, 

 energy and persistence in overcoming the difficulties which are the neces- 

 sary accompaniment of collecting in the tropics, that he was subsequently 

 selected as one of the Museum's representatives with the Roosevelt Brazilian 

 Expedition. 



His work during the rainy season in the humid Amazonian forests of 

 the Caqueta, where with only unskilled native assistance he secured 830 

 birds and mammals in 30 days is a feat in tropical collecting; while his 



