1917.] Chapman, Distribution of Bird-life in Colombia. 73 



is many miles. The sight is most impressive. There is not a single rise 

 visible and the forest is of uniform height." 



Dr. Hamilton Rice writing from a point west of the Sierra Chiribiquete 

 (Lat. 1° 10' 16"; Long. 72° 12' 34" and therefore slightly south of east 

 from Miller's station) says:^ "From this high land the Chiribiquete was 

 seen to extend southeast as far as the eye reached, the rest of the country 

 being undulating and forest-covered .... Occasionally the forest gave place 

 to a dense growth of bush (rastrojo), a wild tangled thicket, difficult to get 

 through, on a bottom of black, boggy mud, and especially hard on the 

 carriers." The same writer (l. c, p. 144) also refers to the densely forested 

 plains of the Inirida and Uaupes, while his description of the transition 

 from the Llanos north of the Guaviare to the forested region south of it (1. c. 

 p. 145) I quote in full: 



" In passing from north to south across such a stretch of country as that 

 between San Martin and the Caqueta district, one may note differences of 

 Amazonian vegetation characteristic of each different level of land. First 

 there are the grassy savannas or campos with their knolls, glades, thickets, 

 and scattered scrub; then the vegetation of the lowlands or rebalsa edging 

 the rivers and inundated in the wet or winter season; next the forests of the 

 low plains or monte bajo, which when seen from above appear more evenly 

 topped and lighter than the woods on land above the highwater mark 

 (monte alto), which are known as Virgin or Primeval forest. On closer 

 inspection the trees of the low plain are seen to be lower and more scattered 

 than those of the high land, without any great abundance of palms or lianas, 

 but with a profusion of ferns. In the Virgin forest the trees are densely 

 packed and high, from which emerge solitary individuals still more lofty, 

 overtopping even the highest palms, and from whose massive masts are 

 spread diverse forms of crowns and summits, dome, pyramidal, and cande- 

 labra, the whole interwoven by an intricate meshwork of lianas and vines. 

 The vegetation of the rebalsa near the river bank is often low and bushlike, 

 but gradually increases in height, the further it is from the bank, until, at 

 the point to which the highest floods reach, it almost rivals the trees of the 

 monte alto in height." 



The Pacific coast forest extends from northwestern Ecuador northward 

 to eastern Panama, and from the shore-line eastward to the forests of the 

 Subtropical Zone, or to the summits of outlying ridges. Under th'e condi- 

 tion first-named the entire Pacific slope of the Western Andes from sea to 

 summit is covered with unbroken forest, such, for example, as Allen and 

 Miller (Expedition No. 3) found on their section from Cartago to Novita. 



^ Geog. Journ. August, 1914, p. 150. 



