Toward evening we reached a native hut--the second since leaving the valley. The elevation of the place was ten thousand five hundred feet. A large clearing in which white clover grew abundantly surrounded the house. The inhabitants also had other clearings farther down, where they planted corn and wheat. They were all suffering with colds and the dreaded _dengue_, from which I was fortunately able to give them some relief with the aid of our medical kit. In return for this service they treated us most courteously and placed one of their two rooms at our disposal, although it happened that a score or more of chickens occupied the same quarters. The night was cold and damp. Next morning the wretched people gave us milk and cheese and we purchased several dozen eggs--certainly a great luxury in such an out-of-the-way place. They also showed us the skin and feet of a tapir one of the men had killed in the forest above. The hide had been used to make bottoms for chairs and was of a black color. They reported the presence of two species of bears, one entirely black and the other the tolerably well-known spectacled bear. Although the latter is the only species of bear supposed to exist in South America, I have been told repeatedly by the people that a large black bear is found in the high Andes and have seen skins that appeared to bear out their statements. After leaving the house next morning we soon reached heavy mountain forest. A deserted hut stood near the border of it, so on our return from the paramo we spent several days there. The chief attraction about the place was the abundance of white-throated sparrows (_Brachyspiza capensis capensis_). Their cheerful little song cannot fail to endear them to any one with even a limited æsthetic nature. Whether one hears it in the hot, tropical lowlands or on a bleak mountain-top twelve thousand feet above sea-level, the happy little melody is always the same. Nor is the music confined to the hours of daylight only. I have frequently heard it in the darkest hours of night, ringing clear and sweet from somewhere out in the all-pervading blackness. These birds are fond of the proximity of man and are most abundant where he has chosen to break the soil and erect his abode. As a general rule they are not gregarious, but I have seen them congregate in flocks of many thousands to spend the night in some particularly attractive spot in places where sleeping sites were limited in number. Farther south these sparrows also gather in flocks of varying size during the winter season. The nest is a neat, cup-shaped structure made of fine grasses; it is placed in a low bush or on the ground. Two or three pale-blue eggs thickly spotted with brown are laid and not infrequently two broods are reared in a season.