Nov., 1905 | 
A WINTER WITH the birds IN COSTA RICA 
153 
minutes and were refreshed by good draughts of fresh milk and hot coffee. We 
then entered the primitive forest which still covers the last thousand feet, more or 
less, of the mountains, proceeding slowly and laboriously along a narrow trail of stiff 
black mud, up to the horses’ knees and often deeper, and full of tree roots in which 
the horses’ feet were frequently entangled. The density of this forest was such 
that it was impossible to leave the trail at any point without cutting a way with 
machetes ; and as the undergrowth consisted mostly of slender climbing bamboos 
with exceedingly hard stems, which almost completely filled the spaces between 
the trees, the difficulty of making much headway maybe imagined. The variety of 
trees in this forest was very great, many of the trees very large, and some of ex- 
treme beauty. All were fairly burdened with orchids, bromeliads, and mistletoes, 
the latter often conspicuously and brilliantly flowered and the bromeliads mostly 
of brilliant hues of orange, scarlet, or crimson. Here is the home of the royal 
Quetzal ( Pharomachrus moc- 
inno ) — the most gracefully 
and magnificently beautiful 
of all birds — amid surround- 
ings no less magnificent than 
itself. Leaving our horses in 
an open basin (an ancient 
crater) surrounded by forest, 
we proceeded on foot to the 
summit of the cinder cone, 
but were disappointed in our 
view of the crater, which 
w r as completely filled with 
dense clouds, except for a 
moment when the strong 
wind dispersed the mass of 
vapor and allowed a brief 
glimpse of the boiling lake, 
400 metres below. From the 
summit of the cone we de- 
scended to the lagoon (an- 
other extinct crater) filled 
with clear water of almost icy 
coldness, and surrounded by 
dense forest. Our stay was 
much too short to enable 11s to learn much of the birds found on Poas, but they 
were everywhere present in great variety, except on the bare summit, where none 
whatever were seen. 
Pigres is a very small village of thatched bamboo ranchos on a narrow point of 
land (in reality a mere sand-bar) at the mouth of the Rio Grande de Tarcoles, 
w'hich enters the Pacific Ocean wdiere the latter joins the Gulf of Nicoya. Across 
the latter is plainly seen the mountains of the peninsula of Guanacaste, and to the 
southeast the densely forested coast mountains of the mainland, extending 
toward Panama. Between the narrow strip on which Pigres is situated and the 
mainland proper is the estero, a broad creek of placid water bordered along each 
side by dense mangrove swamps. These are very narrow and of limited extent 
on the Pigres side, most of the land consisting of bare sand, covered in places with 
OFF FOR THE HILLS AT BONILLA 
