during a Cruise in the Caribbean Sea. 305 



Los Hermanos, and Los Tcstigos Islands (and, so far as 

 1 am aware, in the Curasao Group also), but the flora 

 and avifauna present the same general characteristics and 

 differ in an appreciable way from those of the mainland 

 as a whole. 



To one steaming up the Gulf of Cariaco nothing indeed 

 could be much more striking than the strange contrast 

 which is exhibited on the one hand by the Peninsula, with 

 its arid, desolate, and schistose rocks only scantily clothed 

 with cactus and mimosa scrub, and on the other by range 

 after range of tall mountains, luxuriantly forest-clad, 

 which mark the Secondary limestone formations of the 

 mainland. 



We have, then, off the coast of Venezuela a chain of 

 islands which, together with the Peninsula of Cariaco, 

 lepresent the remains of what in all probability in a remote 

 Primary age was one continuous and large tract of land, 

 and exhibit an avifauna which in general can be distin- 

 guished from that of the mainland. In an old French 

 atlas this chain of islands is designated by the name " Les 

 Isles sous le vent." They are, indeed, the real Leeward 

 Islands of the old discoverers, and I am at a loss to account 

 for the reason that the name has been applied to another 

 and more northern group. 



My paper also includes notes on the birds of Swan 

 Island and the Grand Cayman, both of which lie in the 

 western end of the Caribbean Sea. I have added a few 

 notes on some of the species met with in the islands of 

 St. Vincent, Grenada, and Barbados. We have previously 

 visited these islands on one or two occasions, but the birds 

 which inhabit them are in general so well known that I 

 confine myself to a few remarks which may possibly prove 

 of interest. 



I take the islands in the order in which we visited them. 



I once more have to express my great indebtedness to 

 Dr. Bowdler Sharpe, who has allowed me to work out my 

 collection at the British Museum and given me much kind 

 assistance. 



