42 Bulletin American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XXXVI, 



minutes and then cuts steeply up the mountain-side, winding much until 

 the very top of the ridge is reached at an altitude of 10,350 feet. The trail 

 then follows this ridge for about two miles and then descends on the other 

 side two hours' distant to iymaguer. This ridge extends approximately 

 northeast and southwest, and shows evidences of timbering along the lower 

 line of forest growth. At present, the whole crest of the ridge is covered 

 with most luxuriant forest but it extends downward for but a few hundred 

 feet (altitude). From evidences on the south side of the ridge, I should 

 judge that this forest may have originally extended down as low as 9500 

 feet, this lower stretch now being covered with high bushes of the "ole- 

 ander'' type, and with occasional trees of size. The forest itself is a most 

 luxuriant one of the 'cloud [= Temperate] zone' type, being much more 

 luxuriant and mossy than that at Laguneta at Santa Isabel. Here we col- 

 lected nine days — ■ March 9-18. Although the rainy season was not sup- 

 posed to have set in, it rained every day and the forest was always draped 

 with fog. The trail along the ridge has been recently widened which, to- 

 gether with several side trails, made excellent collecting grounds. As usual,' 

 however, birds were scarce, and a considerable number of species were 

 found with nests in the process of construction, a few with eggs, and a few 

 with young on the wing; and the majority of all birds with enlarged repro- 

 ductive organs. 



" The present lower limit of this forest is' about 10,000 feet, the upper 

 limit under 11,000, for in following up a ridge which leads off at an angle 

 from the one of the trail, open places with stunted trees and numerous 

 paramo species of shrub and herbaceous plant were encountered as low as 

 10,600 feet, although the ridge did not extend high enough for real paramo. 

 These open areas were similar. Miller stated, to the crest of the Andes on 

 which he and Richardson had collected West of Popayan. The flora and 

 fauna of this moss forest was very similar to that at Laguneta and Santa 

 Isabel, comparatively few species new to our former collections being taken. 



"March 18, we broke camp to start for San Agustin. One long day's 

 travel, or a day and a half, as we had to travel, brings one to the town of 

 San Sebastian. The trail from Almaguer crosses the ridge to the north- 

 east at 9600 feet, which is below the present lower edge of the moss forest, 

 and then descends steeply into the Valley of the Caquiona at 7700 feet. 

 The trail then follows down this valley for about an hour and crosses another 

 ridge into the valley of the San Sebastian, at the head of which is the town 

 of San Sebastian (alt. 7600 ft.). It is a small town of some fifty or sixty 

 houses, where the necessities can be secured on market day; that is, bread, 

 meat, rice, beans and sugar, but at other times it is rather devoid of life. 

 The fauna of these last two valleys appeared similar to that of La Sierra, 



