Page:Condor10(6).djvu/17

 Nov., 1908 A MONTH'S BIRD-COLL]CTING IN V]N]ZU]LA 227 grass and leaves where they fall, and being entirely green themselves, they are sel- dom found when thus concealed. A very interesting bird met in the vicinity of Caracas was a tiny woodpecker, about the size of one's thumb. Its plumage is of an odd pepper-and-salt pattern, being an admixture of black and white. It clambers slowly about twigs something after the manner of a nuthatch. The exquisite sky-blue tanager (Tanagra cana subsp ?) was very abundant here and also a jet black species relieved only by white spots on the shoulders (Tachylhonus). The whirr of humming-birds' wings was almost constantly in one's ears. An odd species was tolerably common here, its long white tail feathers causing it to gyrate in a singular manner as it hovered about a flower. The small finch (luelhia sp ?), the males mostly black, the females olive gray, were abundant here and occurred in flocks about the borders of cultivated fields. The red-start (Selo- 2bhaga rulicilla), water-thrush (Skiurus noveboracenss subsp ?), and lesser yellow- legs were the only North American migrants seen here. Swifts were common but their rapid flight baffled my attempts to secure one. There were several varieties. A common bird among the brushy hills was one of the Dendrocolaptide (Sitlaso- mus sp ?). It has a note very like our song sparrow. For two weeks I collected in the vicinity of Caracas, visiting two different lo- calities, west of the city. A pleasant feature of my stay was several visits to the city itself. Travellers have written so much in regard to its present and historic interest, its beautiful buildings and its fascinating life that it is not necessary for me to speak of it here. I should like to add one word as to its climate. Its alti- tude is 4017 feet so that notwithstanding the fact that it is but ten degrees from the equator, it has a delightful climate, 65 to 70  the year around. The air has a soft, balmy quality which is not enervating. In this respect Caracas is in marked contrast to La Guayra, its seaport, which lies over the range of mountains to the north. Tho only six miles in an air line from Caracas and 4000 feet below it, La Guayra is one of the hottest places in the world, having a temperature the year around of 100 degrees. It is a very un- healthy city, directly upon a low, flat coastal plane. While we were ther the bu- bonic plague was raging, and we finally had to leave the country hurriedly by another port, because of the rigid quarantining of La Guayra, and the possibility of the same being done to other ports. How 900 bird-skins and two trunks full of personal property were held for months in La Guayra, and were actually reported as destroyed, but finally sent safely to this country, is a long story with an unex- pectedly happy ending, but too long to relate here. On April 6, 1908, Dr. Ned Dearborn of the Field Museum, arrived at La Guayra from Curacao, one of the Dutch West Indies, where he had been recently collecting, and we worked together for two weeks in Venezuela, when the aforesaid plague broke out, and we hurried out of the country. The following day, April 7, we left Caracas by train for the famous Valencia plains, where we made our head- quarters in the thriving and attractive town of Maracay. Here we had most ex- cellent collecting. The country was perfectly flat, being once the bed of the now comparatively small Lake Valencia. Occasionally low ridges or spurs of hills from the surrounding mountains project into this plain. Some of the land is marshy, and a small brook was utilized for irrigating a few adjacent plantations. Most of the country, however, was very dry, and thorny, almost leafless bushes covered most of landscape. The fringes of forest severely parched by the drought, har- bored a great variety of bird-life, and the thirty or forty birds which the collector would find in his basket after about three hours' collecting is surprising to one