deBenedictis 1964 3 March Grayaquil to Playas, Guayas Prov., Ecuador. woke up about 4, went back to sleep to 6:30. Went out to see what was singing - Bowman's Darwin Finches, naturally. Nothing but the Cassin's King- bird and Martins on the river. About 7 I went with Teel Popenfuss and Pete Whitney to the town of Playas by cab. We jussed around Grayaquil for a while then took a good paved road out. Just outside Grayaquil there is some fairly extensive second-growth tropical forest and the magnificent trees in the area grown to scrub well testify that the area was once quite green and lush, but is now all scrub and farm land. There is very little farming visible from the highway for the most part, only scattered houses and fields, especially near Grayaquil. The road is fenced off for almost its entire length. Birds are numerous here, mostly flycatchers, and hawks are very scarce, even Vultures, compared to Mexico. We did not stop in any of this vegetation but instead went into a transition scrub forest, this fairly well intact and not much settled where we stopped at 2 places, one about 30 km from Grayaquil on the way out and another spot c. 60 km. out on the way back. Both places were where a stream went under the highway, wide enough to merit a bridge. The 1st stop was in vegetation comparable to the lower tran-