154 
THE CONDOR 
| Vol. VII 
patches of a trailing Ipomaea with broad leathery leaves and pink flowers, matted 
clusters of sprawling and very thorny leguminous shrubs, and thickets of low, 
spreading mimosa-like trees, interspersed with the poisonous manzanilla. Not- 
withstanding the dry season and almost total absence of flowers, birds were very 
numerous in the vicinity of the village, especially two species of ground dove 
( Columbigallina rufipennis and C. passerina pal/escens), and Morellet’s seedeater, 
( Sporophila. morelleti ), large flocks of which were almost continually feeding on the 
ground about the ranchos. Columba ruji?ia and Leptotila verreauxi were also com- 
mon in the thickets, while among the smaller birds the most numerous was the 
mangrove warbler ( Dendroica brya?iti castaneiceps). In these thickets were also 
secured two examples of the rare Vireo pallens and several of the still rarer hum- 
mingbird, Arinia boucardi, until then only known from the single pair in the Paris 
Museum, collected in 1875 by Mons. Adolphe Boucard, at Punta Arenas. The 
true home of the latter is in the mangrove swamps, and the specimens secured 
were stragglers which had come outside to feed upon minute ants and other in- 
sects infesting the 
mimosa trees. The 
large and rare 
Phceochroa cuvieri 
was the only other 
hummer found on 
the Pigres side, 
where it was less 
common than on 
the opposite side of 
the estero. Imme- 
diately beyond the 
fringe of mangrove 
swamp across the 
estero a high mixed 
forest extended for 
many miles, and 
daily trips were 
made there, much 
the larger part of 
the species collect- 
ed being found on that side only. Scattered through this forest were many speci- 
mens of the rob/e de savana (oak of the savanna), a bignoniaceous tree resembling 
the catalpa but with much larger flowers of a beautiful rose-pink color, among 
which many birds were feeding, especially several kinds of hummingbirds and the 
Baltimore and orchard orioles. Of the former, Amazilia fuscicaudata, Phceochroa 
cuvieri and Chrysuronia cl idee were most common, no Arinia being found. The un- 
dergrowth in this forest consisted chiefly of small biscoyal palms, bristling with 
long, slender thorns of needle-like sharpness, which proved a great nuisance and 
interfered seriously with our work. An attempt was made to clear them away 
from beneath one flowering roble tree to which hummingbirds seemed partial, but 
a few strokes turned and broke the edge of our machetes and we gave it up. 
Farther inland the biscoyals gave way to tall cannas, which were easily felled but 
grew so close together and so tall (sometimes ten to twelve feet) that birds could 
not be seen. In this forest of tall and often very large trees (we measured one 
which was thirty feet from the extremity of one buttress to that of the opposite 
