* 
UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL 
INSTITUTO DE CIENCIAS NATURALES 
APARTADO POSTAL N°. 2535 
TELEFONO 5971 
BOGOTA - COLOMBIA 
numero__ 
secciqn Dir.fino.Ion 
A 
FEB 12 1341 
Bogota, febrero 8 de 194-1 
Dr. Alexander tetmore 
Smitsonian Institution 
Washington, D. C., U. S. 
A 
Dear Dr. Wetmore: 
Your kind letter of January 27th. was received 
yeste^frday and I am extremely glad to learn of your vi¬ 
sit to Colombia. I very especially expect that you will 
carry your plan to come to Bogotd for a few days. This 
is indeed good news and it will be a great pleasure for 
me to have the opportunity of meeting you personally. 
Your very fine words about my appointment as Di¬ 
rector of this Institute are gratefully appreciated, and 
regarding the most friendly relations which the distin¬ 
guished scientific workers of the Smithsonian Institution 
have for all of us here, I can assure you that they are 
esteemed and heartily reciprocated. For my part, I will 
make it a special aim to bring such relations to even clo¬ 
ser union. 
Yo doubt the Guajira Peninsula and the regions 
next to it offer an interesting field for collecting birds 
altho-ugh the ecological conditions of the peninsula itself 
are mostly of the brushy xerophytic type while large spa¬ 
ces are almost desertic save for a few widely spaced bushes 
of thorny ilimosaceae and Cacti. This sort of vegetation oc¬ 
curs also in some sections of the lower Magdalena valley 
and the Caribbean coast which which I am familiar being 
though of a much less desertic nature. 
The Perij a, Yegra and Motilones rangs lying bet¬ 
ween Colombia and Venezuela should yield interesting disco¬ 
veries which may lead to a better understanding of the ori¬ 
gin of the bird fauna of the Magdalena valley. This should 
be completed if possible by collecting in the middle and 
lower valley of the rio Cesare. I understand that Mr. W. H. 
Phelps or his collectors have recently worked in the eastern 
side of the ranges, around Maracaibo. 
I have had in mind for a time to send Mr.Carlos 
Lehmann, who is in charge of our Seccion de Ornitolog!a,to 
the Cesare valley and the Guajira. He is an able collector 
as well as a trained taxidermist and has added many valua¬ 
ble and interesting specimens to our collections arid to our 
