noble: the resident birds of Guadeloupe. 395 



become darker in color as it progresses southward. This diflFerence 

 does not seem to be seasonal or sexual. Between any two adjacent 

 islands there is no marked difference in color, but the birds from 

 Barbados and Grenada are distinctly darker than those from Guade- 

 loupe. Because of this intergrading, it seems hardly advisable to 

 draw a line between the northern and southern birds by separating a 

 race. 



J. H. Riley (Smith, misc. coll., 1904, 47, p. 288) has noted this 

 slight difference and in speaking of the Barbuda and Antigua birds 

 says : — 



"The above series, when compared with a series from the other 

 Lesser Antilles, averages more olive brown above, without the reddish 

 cast in the plumage seen in the other series before me. The measure- 

 ments are also slightly larger as the following will show : Four males 

 from Barbuda and Antigua average: wing, 129; tail, 104.6, culmen, 

 20. Seven males from Saba south to St. Vincent average: wing, 

 121.3; tail, 95.6; culmen, 19.4." 



I find the Guadeloupe bird compares favorably in measurements 

 with the Barbuda-Antigua birds. Three males from Guadeloupe 

 average: — wing, 121.3; tail, 93.6; exposed culmen, 18.3; tarsus, 



29.2. Three females from Guadeloupe average: — wing, 124.9; 

 tail, 98; exposed culmen, 18.8; tarsus, 31. 



The measurements of the Dominica birds, on the other hand, fall 

 well within the range of variation in a series of twenty birds from the 

 islands to the south as far as Grenada. Three males from Dominica 

 average: — wing, 114.6; tail, 90.5; exposed culmen, 18.8; tarsus, 



28.3. It seems evident then that if a southern race were to be sepa- 

 rated from a northern the Guadeloupe bird would be included in the 

 northern and the Dominica bird in the southern. Such a splitting 

 up of races on these two closely associated islands is not at all the rule 

 of subspecific differentiation in the avifauna of the Lesser Antilles. 

 On Guadeloupe this species is the commonest of the three Grives, but 

 I did not meet with it at all during my short staj^ on some of the more 

 northern islands. It prefers the borders of woodlands made up of 

 pure stands of deciduous trees or again the scrubby upland fields; 

 still it is not rare even in the deep woods wherever there is a clearing 

 formed by a tree which has crashed down. 



The song of this bird consists of a few high notes uttered slowly and 

 deliberately, generally from the top of some small tree standing at 

 the edge of a clearing. The birds congregate only when feeding on 

 the small fruit-trebs, and it is rare that you find them together. 



