XX. A CONTRIBUTION TO THE ORNITHOLOGY OF THE 

 BAHAMA ISLANDS. 



By W. E. Clyde Todd and W. W. Worthington. 



Introduction. 



By W. E. Clyde Todd. 



In the fall of 1908 the writer suggested to the well-known orni- 

 thological collector, Mr. Willis W. Worthington of Shelter Island 

 Heights, New York, the desirability of making a collecting trip to 

 the Bahama Islands. Mr. Worthington at length agreed to such an 

 undertaking, and also to give the Carnegie Museum the refusal of his 

 prospective collections, nearly all of which were in fact eventually 

 acquired. Beginning work on New Providence the last week in 

 December of that 3'ear, he visited in succession Great Inagua, Acklin 

 Island, Watlings Island, i\ndros, and Abaco, thus covering the group 

 fairly well, so far as faunal districts are concerned. Although con- 

 siderable collections were made in other branches, birds were naturally 

 the primary consideration. As the law now stands in the Bahamas, 

 licenses to collect birds for scientific purposes do not permit the 

 holder to take more than six specimens of any one kind — a most 

 embarrassing restriction, which will make it very difficult and expensive 

 to secure fresh material from this region in the future. Through the 

 granting of a license to Mr. Worthington's assistant, however, the 

 limit was increased to twelve specimens, and in only a few instances 

 was this number exceeded, and then only by inadvertence. Despite 

 such an unfortunate drawback, and the exigencies of travel and sundry 

 other inconveniences under which Mr. Worthington labored, he was 

 unusually successful in securing specimens of the rarer and more 

 interesting Bahaman land-birds, among them a remarkable and un- 

 expected new species of warbler from the island of Abaco, and he 

 was able also to add a few additional species to the Bahaman avifauna, 

 besides getting numerous new records for the various islands. As he 

 was entirely dependent upon irregular sailing-vessels for transportation, 

 he was unable to visit any of the colonies of sea-birds on the isolated 



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