APPENDIX D 



LIST OF HAITIAN BIRDS OBSERVED 



Seldom have I seen such abundance of life under water 

 as in the Gulf of Gonave, and such dearth of living organisms 

 as above it. From the deck of my schooner I watch the 

 sun rise suddenly over the farther end of the valley of the 

 Cul-de-Sac, and roll its violent light down the wide, sloping 

 stretch of semi-arid land. As the day dawns a bell or two 

 rings in the distance, burros bray, cocks crow, but the 

 morning chorus of the tropics hangs fire. If I were deaf 

 to all but human sounds there would be only silence. Then 

 my straining ears catch a call quite out of place — whul 

 bob-white! from far up the mountain slope, and we have 

 Haiti's ornithological face saved by this member of the 

 northern family of quails. Before I give up hope a single 

 natiye call comes across the water. Through the glass I 

 see a trio of Haitian grackles flying from palm to palm, 

 and they send out a clear strain, so meadowlark-like that 

 it changes the scene to a frosty day in a northern meadow. 



If the tide is falling, continual watching will be rewarded 

 by a single great blue heron or a solitary egret, or one 

 Louisiana heron winging its way to some shoal, or more 

 rarely a sharp-winged royal tern flying past. Once, and 

 once only, in three months, a laughing gull was seen perched 

 on a coral crag, and was an event. Twice, in the hundred 

 days of our stay, a frigate-bird soared past high overhead. 

 An osprey tried unsuccessfully one day to alight on a mast 

 top, overburdened with a large fish in the claws of one foot. 

 Two groups of pelicans haunted our side of the gulf, one 

 at Sand Cay and the other at Lamentin Reef, We shot 



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