CONDOit.

Bulletin of the Cooper Ornithological Club. A BI-iIONTHLY EXPONENT OF CALIFORNIAN ORNITHOLOGY. Vol. 3- 1',7o. 2. Santa Clara, Cal., March-April, 1901. $].oo a Year Two Years With Mexican Birds. I. iraud's Flycatcher. BY E. H. SICINNER. [Read before the Northern Division of the Cooper Orn. Club, March z, I9OI. ] F OR two years I was located near Tapachula, in the state of Chiapas, Mexico. This is the southermnost point of the Mexican i'epublic, and properly speaking in Central America, as it is south of the isthmus of Tehuan- tepee. Tapachula is in nearly the same longitude as St. Louis and in the same latitude as southern Guatemala and rorthern Honduras. Along the coast there is a belt of low- lands averaging thirty miles in width, and back of this belt the mountains rise abruptly to an elevation of ten thou'sand feet. The lowlands are cov- ered with almost impene- trable tropical jungles, with here and there patches of dreary, treeless, uninhab- ited plains covered with coarse grass. The heat on these plains is intense and burning, and even in the shady jungle it is suffo- cating. All day It)rig there is an almost un- broken silence. The insects can hardly get up energy to chirp. The 'Furkey and Black Vultures sit motionless on the limbs of some dead tree or drde lazily in the air. The egret roosts in the shade along the sloughs. The Mot- mot in the jungle sits on a branch and at long intervals utters his coot, coot in a heavy bass, but toward nightfall the chachalaca, the parrots and macaws vie with each other in making the evening hideous with their discordant cries. Going inland the temperature grows lower as we ascend the foothills, and when we reach an elevation of 5,0oo feet the distinctively tropical trees have disappeared, as well as the lowland birds. Here among the semi-tropical forests of oak, palms and countless other trees, is the home of the Quesal (Pharo- macrus mocinno), the nation- al bird of Guatemala, which  pines away and dies if denied ,' . its liberty. Among these woods are clearings planted  to coffee. This semi-tropical country along the mountain- ' side is called the coffee belt. Near the summit there are E. H. SKINNEll. forests of pine, but on the plateau and higher volcan- oes the trees are stunted, it being very hot in the daytime and freezing at night. Here we find bluejays, crows, killdeers and other birds of a temperate clime. Having spent most of my time in the coffee belt, I am more familiar with its birds than with hose of other sections, so I shall try to describe its most noticeable bird, Giraud's Flycatch- er(Z3,iozeleles texensis), which although not the commonest variety, is the most