MAR. 1896. ORNITHOLOGY OF SAN DOMINGO CHERRIE. 5 



wood-spirit, the Myiadestes, sets every nerve a-tingling with pleasure, 

 but the Myiadestes are rare as their songs. 



It may not be without interest to present a few notes from my 

 journal regarding one of my excursions from Catare, which pretty 

 well illustrates the difficulties one encounters in traveling through the 

 country. 



Leaving Catare early in the morning I took my way in the direc- 

 tion of Yuna. The road shortly after passing the Jaina River became 

 something awful it never could have been very good, but the storm 

 of the previous September (1894) blew a great many trees across the 

 path, and these had not been cleared away. Frequently I would 

 have to assist my guide and the two of us would cut a path with our 

 " machetes " for the pack animals. What shiftlessness one sees every- 

 where. Wherever the road leads through the forest one wades in 

 mud to the knees and in places the poor horses with the packs 

 plunged and pitched terribly as they struggled up some bank out of 

 the many small streams that we crossed. Yet only a very little 

 work would be required to make good roads. 



The road follows up the course of one of the tributaries of the 

 Jaina (the Guananito), crossing and recrossing. In the way several 

 savannas are crossed bits of grass-grown prairies that would afford 

 pasturage for a great many cattle. The timber lands would all prove 

 good for farming when cleared. There are many splendid woods, and 

 as we climbed higher in the mountains, after leaving the direct course 

 of the river, we found that pines multiplied rapidly and formed the 

 greater part of the trees of the forest. 



On this excursion I secured the type specimen of Elainea cherriei 

 and my first examples of Corvus leucognaphalus, Amazona scilicet, Blaci- 

 cus hispaniolensis, Tyrannus dominicensis, Spindalis multicolor and Eue- 

 thea lepida. 



February 6, my supplies of all kinds being about exhausted and 

 my packing cases for skins full, I began my first return trip to San 

 Domingo City. 



After a short rest and a little collecting about San Domingo City, 

 I again took the road for the interior, back through Catare, up and 

 across the central mountain range and down to the head waters of the 

 Vuerto River, a tributary of the Maimon, which latter empties into the 

 Yuna. Here at a point called Aguacate I stopped from February 20 

 to February 28. It is just at the foot of the mountain divide on the 

 northern slope of the range separating the high plains and prairie 

 table lands of the interior from the Caribbean slope. 



My guide and servant became now only a burden to me, being so 



