8o MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB 



The only Cuban specimen In the Museum of Comparative Zoology 

 was an old Lafrcsnaye bird, with no data, until this one just killed in the 

 Cienaga was received. In appearance and size it is like the preceding 

 species, but it lacks the metallic patches on the aeck. 



140. Ara tricolor Bech stein. 

 Cuban Macaw; Guacamayo. 



The Cuban Macaw, a fine red and yellow species, began to disappear 

 early. It apparently never was widespread, and I know of no tradition 

 that it ever was found in Oriente. I was told in Guane that no Macaws 

 were seen in western Pinar del Rio after the great hurricane of 1844. There 

 were still a few in the Zapata Swamp until about 1850. Gundlach collected 

 a number of birds from the last band which came regularly to feed in a 

 small group of paraiso trees in the yard or batey of the colonia at Zarabanda. 

 These trees are still standing, and I have talked with an aged planter who 

 was with Gundlach when he shot his last pair. One of these, and a couple 

 of Cuban Ivory-billed Woodpeckers, Gundlach took with him to Porto 

 Rico when he left Cuba during the early years of the Ten Years' War. 

 As is well known, he was in very straightened circumstances, and, being 

 scrupulously careful in repaying favors, he gave his birds, when he returned 

 to Cuba, to an apothecary named Blanco, who had befriended him. This 

 Macaw is beyond doubt the one secured for the United States National 

 Museum after the American Occupation. The Woodpeckers, I believe, 

 are now in the American Museum of Natural History in New York. There 

 is a second Macaw in the Aluseum in Washington, and one in the Museum 

 of Comparative Zoology (no. 72,526), which formerly was in the Lafresnaye 

 collection. It is in fine condition, but has one wing clipped, which suggests 

 that it was a cage-bird secured in France. I know of but a single specimen 

 now in Cuba. This is in the Gundlach collection in Havana. The bird 

 formerly in the cabinet of the Havana Academy of Sciences disappeared a 

 few years ago, and gossip has it that, having been surreptitiously extracted, 

 it found its way to a famous private collection abroad. There was said to 

 have been another in the excellent little Museum in Cardenas, but this 

 probably has been destroyed by insect pests, as also the bird formerly in 

 the Matanzas Institute. 



Gundlach described how the peasants would locate a pair nesting in a 

 hollow palm and then wait until the young were well grown. These were 



