iv PREFACE. 



throughout Colombia I met with a courteous treatment that we 

 might sometimes look for in vain in many portions of our own 

 country. 



If I have dwelt too much on birds^ remember that the study of 

 birds is my hobby, that I went to the tropics for the purpose of 

 observing them, and I am therefore inclined to give more promi- 

 nence to them than to other objects. In my descriptions of them 

 I have endeavored to give an idea of their approximate size by 

 comparing them to some of our well-known birds. I have done 

 this because I have often found that, from never having seen a 

 specimen, I have had erroneous ideas of the size of some birds. 

 Thus, I had thought from the figures that the larger hornbills 

 were about the size of our crow, and, making an error in the oppo- 

 site direction, I supposed that a stormy petrel was the size of a gull. 



The illustrations, with a few exceptions which are noticed in the 

 text, have been drawn expressly for this work or reproduced from 

 my photographs. 



