treatment; a rubber planter went south to the Isthmus, an oil-man north to the petroleum deposits near Tuxpam, and an archeologist left for the ruins on the table-land.

Some came to buy, others to sell, and in more settled lands we might have had small interest in them or their calling, but your commercial man in the tropics is often an adventurer at heart and an explorer in practice, and if his reports to his "house" never reach the pages of a geographic magazine, we may admit that they not infrequently contain more novel information than many reports that do. Gratefully do I acknowledge my debt to these Knights of Trade, whose intimate knowledge of little-known trails and places has been of no small value in solving problems of transportation and subsistence.

WE PASS THROUGH TROPICAL, TEMPERATE, AND BOREAL ZONES IN 75 MILES

My own mission in Mexico was to make field studies and collect specimens and accessories for an American Museum Habitat Group, designed to illustrate the effect of altitude on the distribution of life; and the fact that nowhere on the American hemisphere can this be

Photo by Frank M. Chapman

done so effectively as in the country lying between sea-level and snow-line on Mt. Orizaba, is in direct support of the claims made for the diverse interests of this truly wonderful region.

Reference to a map of the natural life region stretching up two narrow arms on areas of North America shows the tropic

the Gulf and Pacific coasts of Mexico which, in places on the higher Sierras, are paralleled by southern extensions of the Canadian Zone of the north. Between the two lie bands of the Temperate Zone.

Thus, in our journey from the Gulf to the summit of the Sierra, we pass through Tropical, Temperate, and Boreal zones-the Tierras Caliente, Templada. and Fria, of the native. Our actual journey, in passing from sea-level to snowline, may be a matter of 75 miles, our change of altitude approximately three miles; but if we were to seek the Canadian Zone not on mountain top but on the coast, it would be necessary for us to travel to Maine or Nova Scotia. In other words, a journey of some 1,500 miles would be required to reach conditions which are here distant but three altitudinal miles.

FROM PARROTS TO CROSSBILLS

It follows, then, that one can actually stand in a tropical jungle, where parrots, trogons, toucans, and other equatorial birds are calling from the liana-draped trees, and look upward to forests of pines and spruce, where crossbills, juncos, pine siskins, and evening grosbeaks are among the common permanently resident species.

Later, we may ascend to the snows on Orizaba to discover at approximately what altitude the palms of the Tierra Caliente give way to the oaks of the Tierra Templada, to be in turn replaced by the spruces of the Tierra Fria. As a preliminary to this journey let us first see something of the Tropical Zone.*

Circumstances led me to make studies in this zone near Tampico, and from this town of many dugouts we embarked at 6.15 on an April morning, bound for

*As a matter of fact, on this particular trip, the tropics were visited last, but the narrative follows the more natural order.

Photo by Frank M. Chapman

Paso del Haba, a small sugar plantation on the banks of the Tamesi River distant 75 miles by water, 35 by land. In addideed, our party consisted of George Shition to our host, who proved a host inras, 3d, Louis Agassiz Fuertes, Chapman Grant, and the writer-a company with sufficiently diverse aims to insure a manypointed contact with nature.

Sacrificing the picturesque to the practical, we embarked in a launch with a four-horse-power engine, rather than a tolda - covered canoe of four - paddle power, and consequently reached our destination in twelve hours rather than in thirty-six. But what we gained in speed we lost in opportunity for observation.

ENCROACHING CIVILIZATION

An intrusively vulgar, tuff-tuffing motor-boat is about the most effective agent for destroying the charm and alarming the life of a quiet, remote tropical river that man has devised; but we argued that opportunities missed on the water might

be found on the shore. Furthermore, on the lagoons which mark the entrance of the Tamesi into Panuco, the birds seemed to have become in a measure accustomed to the steady, even cough of our kind of craft, and we passed within gunshot of numerous coots, many species of ducks, and even a small flock of roseate spoonbills, a bird with which we hoped to become more familiar later.

Soon the Tamesi narrowed to 150 or 200 feet, a width it held with surprisingly little variation throughout the day. For a time it wound through a grazing country, which is overflowed in the rainy season, where cattle were numerous and trees almost wanting; then for miles we passed through plantations of bananas. This moisture-loving plant can be grown here only in the narrow strip formerly occupied by the original forest on the banks of the river. With the forest had gone most of the wild life; but man himself was here sufficiently primitive to be a part of the fauna, and his picturesque

Photo by Frank M. Chapman

thatched cabins and log-hewn canoes, and the passing glimpses of his way of life on land and water, afforded interesting illustrations of the manner in which he meets his environment.

About 60 miles from Tampico we first encountered primeval forest, which in this low, comparatively arid coastal zone. is restricted to the river banks, and the immediate increase in the number and variety of birds seen, stimulated a somewhat flagging faith in the accuracy of statements concerning the bird life about the plantation which, be it confessed, we had received with more or less incredulity.

It was 5.30 when we arrived, with just enough daylight left to pitch our tents in the ranch-house clearing on the banks of the river. The brown stream flowed silently by some 20 feet below us, with no hint of the loss to life and property it had caused only the preceding season, when it flooded the country for miles.

It is commonly believed that to see