BIRDS OF CUBA 9 



Crown when Gundlach needed funds to relieve the distress of his protector's 

 family. The Gundlach collection is essentially complete. Exact localities, 

 however, are usually lacking. 



Dr. Charles T. Ramsden of Guantanamo possesses a mounted collec- 

 tion and a large collection of modern skins, nearly all of which were beauti- 

 fully prepared by the late Oskar ToUin, who was in Ramsden's employ 

 for many years. The greater part of his material has been got in the Oriental 

 Province, but Ramsden has many birds from other parts of the Island, 

 obtained in exchange. This is the only modern scientific collection in Cuba. 

 There is said also to be another much older collection in private hands in 

 Santiago, which I have not yet visited. This, however, is said not to 

 contain any of the excessive rarities. 



There are small collections, usually of birds bought abroad but with 

 a few local species, in the other Provincial Institutes at Pinar del Rio, 

 Matanzas, Santa Clara, Camaguey and Santiago. There is a small collec- 

 tion, by no means noteworthy, in the Jesuit Colegio de Belen in Plavana, 

 while there are also collections of birds, which contain some of the rarer 

 species, in the cabinets of the Havana Academy of Medical, Physical 

 and Natural Sciences and of the National University. 



One museum remains to be mentioned, and that is the local municipal 

 museum of Cardenas. Here, with almost no State aid and even less private 

 encouragement. Doctor Rojas, the creator of the institution, has accumulated 

 a really remarkable lot of objects representing the political and natural 

 history of Cuba. 



GEOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY 



The casual visitor may possibly have neither the time nor the inclina- 

 tion, and more often no opportunity, for an extensive examination into 

 the physiographic conditions to be seen in Cuba. Nevertheless it is worth 

 while to try to review briefly the views which have been presented by 

 geologists, as a preface to an attempt to outline the several characteristic 

 and sharply diflferentiated environmental conditions which are sure to be 

 encountered by the traveller. My data have been gleaned largely from 



