304 bulletin: museum of comparative zoology. 



the near by mainland. These are the Elaenia which is much more 

 Uke E. martinica siibpagana, than it is any of the gray Lesser Antillean 

 forms; the Vircosyha caymancnsis which is very closely related to 

 V. magister of the coast of British Honduras and unlike any West 

 Indian form; and the Vireo, which so far as I can see is identical with 

 V. crassirostris the bird inhabiting the Bahamas (which are of simi- 

 lar formation). This species is so much like V. ochraccus of the 

 opposite coasts of Central America and so unlike any of the species 

 peculiar to the Greater Antilles, — Cuba, Jamaica, or Porto Rico, 

 that there seems no question of its origin. 



The remainder of the Cayman birds have come from either Jamaica 

 or Cuba, in some case being still identical with the parent stock, in 

 others having differentiated into what may be called island species 

 or subspecies according to the degree of change. From Jamaica the 

 Caymans have received Leptoiila coUaris and Icterus bairdi. From 

 Cuba the islands have derived the two forms of Amazona peculiar to 

 them, CoJaptcs guruJIachi, Ccnturus caj/mancusis, Mimocichia cori/i, 

 two forms of Holoquiscalus, Spindalis salvini, and Mdopyrrha faylori; 

 probably also Tohnarckus caymanensis, although this species might be 

 descended from either T. caudifasciatus of Cuba or T. janiaiccnsis of 

 Jamaica. 



From the above which discusses every bird peculiar to the Caymans 

 it will be seen that I am unable to recognize several forms which ha\e 

 been described as species or subspecies peculiar to the islands, and 

 these I comment upon at length in the following list. 



At the time of Brown's \isitto Little Cayman and Cayman Brae — 

 June and July — the Boobies and Man-o'-War-Birds were not breed- 

 ing and all he saw during his stay were occasional birds off shore. 

 Besides these and the list of species following he saw and positively 

 identified only two species, namely Hydranassa tricolor ruficoUis 

 (Gosse) and Nyctanassa violacea (Linn,e). 



Brown took nests and eggs of a number of the species; these are 

 preserved in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, and I believe 

 some of them have not before been collected. I have marked Avith 

 an asterisk each species of which he secured the nest and eggs; and 

 with a dagger the species of which the eggs only were taken. 



As this paper was going to press, an article on the birds of Grand 

 Cayman appeared in the Ibis, January 1916, p. 17-35, by T. M. Savage 

 English. Mr. English apparently collected no specimens, but based 

 all his identifications on living birds observed afield. During his 

 three years' residence in the island he was able to add twelve species 



