14 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB 



Since I already have indicated the general division of the Island into 

 limestone and metamorphic rock areas, and as in the discussion of many 

 species further reference is made to the well-defined faunal differences to 

 be seen in the resulting environments, it may be well to consider in more 

 detail the different forms in which these major divisions present themselves. 



The Limestone Ranges 



As one stands at the Country Club in Marianao, a few miles 

 west of Havana, he may see near the horizon to the westward a steep sharp 

 eminence, perhaps five hundred feet high. This is the little Sierra de Anafe, 

 seen end-on. Now, although geologically speaking the narrow limestone 

 ranges may be divided into several series, according to their age and altitude, 

 still from the ecologic point of view they may well be grouped together. 

 This little range, easily visited, yet little known, offers in miniature the 

 conditions which one may find elsewhere on a vaster scale. The steep, 

 sharp slopes are clothed with thick, thorny undergrowth and taller, ragged 

 trees, sheltering Todies, Lizard Cuckoos and Black Finches. The rock, 

 often exposed as bare, white cliffs, is everywhere near the surface. The 

 summit in this case is a more or less flat plateau, cut by small streams 

 into ravines, and into tiny hoyos, where in spite of wood-cutting a few 

 Trogons may still be seen. These round hoyos, or sinks, with an area on 

 the bottom of from a few feet to ten acres, and with sides, in some of the 

 ranges, a thousand feet in depth, are a peculiar feature of Cuban mountains. 

 Steep-sided and usually round, they often represent caves whose roofs 

 have fallen In, allowing of fast solution and erosion. In other cases they 

 may have some other sort of origin. In these hoyos the best tobacco in 

 the whole wide world is grown, and if more certain proof of excellence is 

 asked for, then why else would the Hoyo Pelenque have been cultivated 

 for over a hundred years, when it is surrounded by cliffs which must be 

 ascended or descended by more than seventy separate ladders, and when 

 the oxen which plough the hoyo floor have to be carried in as calves and 

 kept there their whole lives long. To be sure, the climber may listen to the 

 Solitaire as he toils, no mean recompense for his labor. 



The top of the plateau is dog-tooth, or diente perro, the apt Spanish 

 name for the limestone as it stands eroded into fantastic little pinnacles 

 and knife blades, which ring out like glass under foot and which constantly 



