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Volume VII November- December 1905 Number 6 
A Winter with the Birds in Costa Rica 
BY ROBERT RIDGWAY 
WITH PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR 
P ROBx\BLY every ornithologist has hoped sometime in his life to visit the 
Tropics and see for himself the many wonderful things of which he has 
heard or read so much, and especially to see alive and in their natural en- 
vironment, the strange and beautiful birds so inseparably associated in his mind 
with tropical lands. I had myself for many years looked forward to the possibility 
of such an enjoyable experience, but without serious expectation that my hope 
would ever be realized until the receipt of a cordial invitation from my friend Don 
JoseC. Zeledon, of San Jose, Costa Rica, offered the desired opportunity, and I ac- 
cordingly started for Costa Rica, accompanied by my wife, on November 28, 1904. 
Arriving in San Jose on December 8, we remained until May 28, 1905, our stay 
therefore covering a period of nearly six months, during which the country was 
traversed from ocean to ocean and from sea-level to the highest point of land, the 
summit of Irazu, 11500 feet in elevation. 
Owing to negligence of the express company to which it had been consigned 
for shipment, my outfit did not reach me until February 26, 1905. No collecting 
could therefore be done during the first two months; but the time was in part 
profitably employed in making trips to different points in order to look up the most 
promising and convenient locations for collecting. In this preliminary work, as 
well as in the subsequent collecting trips every possible assistance was rendered 
by my friends Don Jose C. Zeledon and Don Anastasio Alfaro, Director of the 
Costa Rica National Museum, one or the other, sometimes both, of whom accom- 
panied me on each occasion. One could not desire more agreeable or helpful com- 
