?6o THE CONDOR I VoL. VII avoided since it lives inside the swollen thorns of a particular species of shrub or small tree resembling our honey locust, easily recognized and therefore easily shunned. The real terrors of Tropical collecting are the absence of comfortable shelter t, nd palatable food, when one is once away from the towns, and the limitations upon travel and transportation. Off the carreta roads, which scarcely exist except between the towns and main settlements, only horse trails occur, and these for the most part over excessively rough, stony, hilly, and often slippery ground. On this account one's outfit nlUSt necessarily be restricted to what can be carried on horseback a, unless the collector be sufficiently provided with funds to be able to hire pack animals and packer. The certainty of getting wet every day when one goes into the mountains (or even elsewhere during the rainy season) is also a seri- ous nmtter, and the collector should be provided with several changes of shoes and clothing, since once wet they cannot, as a rule, be dried. Another thing worth mentioning, though a comparatively trifling matter to a young and strong collector, is the physical difficulty of collecting on account of the dense vegetation aud rough nature of the ground, rendering it often practically impossible to recover a speci- men after it has been shot b. Frequently birds will lodge in a dense mass of air- plants, and can only be recovered by climbing, and sometimes this is not possible. The higher one ascends the greater the difficulties from this source, for tile forests reach the maximum of density on the high mountains, where they are constantly drenched with rains or mists. What most strongly impressed me during my stay in Costa Rica was a realiza- tion of the very fragmentary character of our knowledge of Tropical bird-life. Probably in no country of Central or South America have the birds been studied to a greater extent than in Costa Rica; yet far more than two-thirds of that country have never been ever visited by a naturalist. and within sight of San JosO are for- ests that have never been penetrated. At every locality where we collected, birds were heard each day that were never seen, although constant search was made for
them; and I feel quite sure that even in localities that have been more or less
"worked up" there are species of birds that never will be known to Science unless through accident or until they are driven froin their haunts by destruction of their forest cover. Consequently the possibilities xvllicll may result froin thorough ex- ploration should be a powerful incentive to energetic xv{Jrk ill Tropical America, and I would advise every euthusiastic young ornithologist ?x ho desires a field with- out limit to chcose for his labors some part of that vast region. ?fas]?in?to?t, D.C. a Excellent saddle-bags are easily procurable iu the towns at very moderate cost. b We estimated our loss on this account at an average of two birds out of three in some localities[
