PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE WEST INDIES. 47 

 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE WEST INDIES. 



By F. L. OSWALD. 

 II.— BIRDS, 



THE abundance of birds on the four largest islands of the West 

 Indian archipelago, where indigenous mammals are almost 

 limited to rodents and bats, has often suggested the conjecture that 

 the ancestors of those islanders must have been immigrants from the 

 east coasts of the American mainland; and that theory seems to be 

 confirmed by two facts: the identity, or similarity, of numerous 

 Mexican and West Indian species, and the circumstance that those 

 analogies include so many swift-winged birds. 



There are no woodpeckers in the forests of the Antilles, and only 

 two species of large gallinaceous birds, but a prodigious variety of 

 pigeons, swallows, finches, and 

 crows. The alcedos (king- 

 fishers) are scarce, but the 

 blackbirds so numerous that 

 some of the countless species 

 seem to claim a South Ameri- 

 can and even transatlantic an- 

 cestry. The restless estornino 

 of the Cuban highland forests, 

 for instance, might be mistaken 

 for a varnished starling, resem- 

 bling the Sturnus vulgaris of 

 western Europe in everything 

 but the more brilliant luster 

 of its plumage. The curious 

 codorniUa, or dove quail, too, has its nearest relatives on the other 

 side of the Atlantic, in Syria, Arabia, and the foothills of the Atlas. 

 It builds its nest on the ground and, judging from its appearance, 

 would seem to form a connecting link between the doves and small 

 gallince; but its wings are those of a pigeon, and with the assistance 

 of a, northeast gale may possibly have carried it across the ocean. 



In studying the geographical distribution of animals, we may esti- 

 mate the prevalence of special genera by the number of their varieties, 

 or by the aggregate sum of individuals, and in the latter sense the 

 migratory pigeons of our forest States once nearly outnumbered all 

 the other birds of North America, though the family is limited to 

 five or six species. But in the West Indies the Colutiibidce pre- 

 dominate in both respects. Cuba is a country of wild pigeons as pre- 

 eminently as South Africa is a land of pachyderms and Madagascar 



CkiiWN I'iCKON. 



