Life-Histories of the Booby and the Maii-o'-lVar Bird. 143 



Common name. Scientific name. 



Duck-hawk Falco peregrinus anatum 



Kinsrfisher Ceryle alcyon 



^^ang^ove cuckoo Coccyzus minor maynardi 



Gray kingbird Tyrannus dominicensis 



Savanna sparrow Passerculus sandwichensis savanna 



Palm warbler nendroica palmarum palmarum 



Myrtle warbler Dendroica coronata 



Yellow-throat Geothlypis trichas 



Audubon's shearwater was doubtless breeding on the cay in some of the 

 innumerable holes in the limestone.' No attempt was made to discover it, 

 but the abundance of the birds from nightfall until midnight, as betrayed by 

 their singular calls, together with the absence of other land nearer than 

 30 miles, leaves little doubt of their presetice on the cay. The birds should 

 have been laying at this time, if one may judge from observations made by 

 the writer in May, 1902, in the Washerwoman Keys, off Andros. 



A single sooty tern was seen late one afternoon, and numbers of these 

 birds, with probably also bridled terns, were heard flying about the cay 

 after nightfall. Possibly they may have roosted on the cay, or their visit 

 may have had some connection with their later occupation of it as a nesting- 

 ground. 



Three duck-hawks living on the cay apparently found sufficient sub- 

 sistence in the shore-birds (Liniicolcc) which visited it, and of which they 

 were several times seen in pursuit. 



The presence of the birds above mentioned indicates that Cay Verde 

 would be an admirable station for the study of the migration of birds 

 throughout this region. The small size of the cay would permit the taking 

 of fairly accurate daily censuses, while the distance from the nearest land 

 makes it the only available stopping-place in a large area. It is to this iso- 

 lation that the presence of large numbers of breeding birds on the cay may 

 be chiefly attributed. Animal food is always at a premium in the Bahamas, 

 where indigenous mammalia are virtually absent, and conditions are gener- 

 ally not favorable for the support of domesticated varieties. 



The Bahaman negro considers all flesh edible, and those bird rookeries 

 which were most accessible have long ago been devastated for food. The 

 colony containing thousands of man-o'-war birds, which Dr. Bryant (/. c.) 

 found on Ragged Island, no longer exists ; its extinction, doubtless, being 

 due to the habit, of which we were told, of collecting young man-o'-war 

 birds, salting them, and shipping them as food to other islands. 



THE BOOBY. 



II.XBITS. 



Although, as a tropicopolitan species, the booby (Sula lencogastra) is 

 found throughout the West Indies northward, at least to the mouth of the 

 St. John's River, Florida (where on lilarch 11, 1907, the writer saw 12 



