Photo by Frank M. Chapman 



spoonbills: note the peculiar bill, which gives the bird its name 



without great difficulty from the edge of 

 the table-land through San Andres and 

 Chalchicomula. One may travel to an 

 altitude of 15,000 feet by mule, and the 

 remaining 3,000 odd feet are traversed on 

 foot. No physical obstacles are encoun- 

 tered, and the walk to the top is merely a 

 matter of legs, lungs, and heart. To ac- 

 complish our purpose of determining the 

 approximate limits of the life zones 

 through which one passes in traveling 

 from sea-level to snow-line, a less fre- 

 quented and more direct route was desir- 

 able, and we determined, therefore, to be- 

 gin our ascent at Coscomatepec, a quaint 

 and but little-known town at the bottom 

 of the foothills lying at the eastern base 

 of the mountain. 



Coscomatepec is 2,200 feet above Cor- 

 doba, at the terminus of a railway 20 

 miles in length. The journey is made in 

 three hours, the train leaving Cordoba at 

 7 a. m. and Coscomatepec at 12.30 on the 

 return trip. 



'"doce" and "dos" 



Mistaking "doce y media" (12.30) for 

 dos y media (2.30), our prospecting 

 party missed the train for Cordoba by 

 nearly two hours and we were forced to 

 spend the night at Coscomatepec. With an 

 outfit of lenses, guns, etc., worth several 

 hundred dollars, our cash assets barely 

 sufficed, to buy us the humblect board and 

 lodging and second-class passage to Cor- 

 doba in a freight car overcrowded with 



548 



