164 Mr. E. C. Taylor on the Birds of the West Indies. 



and lie-to off Basseterre, the capital of this small but pretty 

 and prosperous island. St. Kittys has a high mountainous ridge 

 in the centre of the island, called JNIount Misery, which attains 

 a height of 4000 feet. Near the coast the land is level and well 

 cultivated, and produces a good deal of sugar. Close to St. 

 Kittys, to the S.E., is the still smaller island, Nevis, which seems 

 to be a single, high mountain, with very gradually sloping sides, 

 covered with sugar-cane. Both these islands are now, I believe, 

 doing very well. I was informed by several people well acquainted 

 with St. Kitt's that the island abounds with monkeys, which 

 live in the mountains, and descend at night to the sugar-cane 

 pieces and do a great deal of damage. I was further assured 

 that these monkeys, which are about the size of a cat, and very 

 fierce and untameable, are also found in Nevis. Now it cer- 

 tainly seems a very wonderful thing that monkeys should 

 abound, or even exist, in these two small islands, when all the 

 other West Indian Islands, both Greater and Lesser Antilles, in- 

 cluding the large islands of Cuba, St. Domingo, Jamaica, and 

 Porto Rico, are utterly monkeyless. In Trinidad, of course, 

 there are lots of monkeys, of two sorts, viz. a Mycetes and a 

 Cebus, of the same species as those found on the adjacent parts 

 of South America. 



After leaving St. Kittys we touch nowhere till we arrive at 

 St. Thomas, which much-abused little Danish island may be 

 said to consist simply of a harbour, with a town at the head of 

 it, backed by a high, steep ridge of hills. Both harbour and 

 town are very good of their kind, the harbour being large, 

 deep, commodious, and well sheltered ; the town, which is called 

 Charlotte Amelia, being one of the best, though not one of the 

 largest, in the West Indies. One morning I walked to the top 

 of the high, steep ridge at the back of the town, and was re- 

 warded by a beautiful view, which embraced the greater part of 

 the group of Virgin Islands. I had also the pleasure of seeing 

 again my old friend, Crotophaga ani, whom I had lost sight of 

 since I left Trinidad; also another Cuckoo, probably Coccyzus 

 seniculus, and lots of Ground-Doves. 



After spending three days at St. Thomas, on the evening of 

 the 1st of May I went on board the Jamaica packet, and the 



