NO. 2 BIRDS OF ISLA ESCUDO DE VERAGUAS — WETMORE 3 



and Jorge Burke, I was ashore near the southeastern point shortly 

 after 7 o'clock and during the forenoon worked through the southern, 

 level section parallel to the beach nearly to the western end. As the 

 sun rose higher the humidity and heat of the dense jungle, where no 

 breeze could enter, became oppressive, so that it was pleasant at the 

 end to walk back to our cayuco along the open beach. 



At dawn the following morning the breeze blew from the mainland 

 to the south, so that waves were breaking on the beach. We went off 

 before 7 :oo in a choppy sea, and finally landed near the mouth of the 

 small stream. I crossed first into the ridge area at the northeast, but 

 finding this difficult travel and unproductive I sought more level 

 ground. Through this I crossed again toward the western end parallel 

 to the northern shore. The sky was overcast, one shower of rain came, 

 and at times it was difficult to see birds in the heavy jungle shadows. 



Though there were no trails, the low jungle was open and easy to 

 penetrate. Where the growth became dense the ground was covered 

 heavily with vines. On the north and west the surface rose 10 to 25 

 meters in broken, steep-sided ridges, separated by little valleys. Here 

 there was much undergrowth of the spiny pita (a plant of the pine- 

 apple family) which, with the steep, slippery slopes, and the swampy 

 floors of the small valleys between, made it difficult to get about. The 

 taller trees that grow along the crests of these ridges from the sea 

 give a misleading appearance of true high forest. 



On this final day we returned to the launch a little after 11 :oo and, 

 as the sea was rising, left for Almirante, returning through Crawl Cay 

 Channel. 



The only record of any earlier visit of a naturalist to the island is 

 the skin of a white-crowned pigeon in the collections of the University 

 of California at Los Angeles. From the end of February to early in 

 April 1936, Dr. Loye Holmes Miller of the Department of Zoology 

 of that Institution, on sabbatical leave, accompanied by a graduate 

 student, Frank Richardson, as assistant, visited the Laguna de Chiri- 

 qui, living on a barge that served as a base for a Navy Hydrographic 

 Office detail engaged in a survey of the area. Dr. Miller informs me 

 that on March 2 Richardson accompanied a shore party of Navy per- 

 sonnel to Escudo and brought back a white-crowned pigeon. No other 

 specimens were taken. 



While Escudo de Veraguas lies well offshore, it is located on a bank 

 where the sea is shallow. A narrow trench of 24 to 35 fathoms lies 

 to the west and southwest, but elsewhere the depths are considerably 

 less. Since it is estimated that sea levels dropped from 90 to 120 

 meters during the last period of extensive glaciation in Wisconsin 



