Todd: The Birds of the Isle of Pines. 197 



group makes the case all the more remarkable and interesting, and 

 suggests that while the light phase is probably subspecifically 'related 

 to F. sparverius, as already intimated, the dark phase may be in 

 reality a distinct species, which is common in Cuba and rare in the 

 Isle of Pines, but does not extend to Haiti and Santo Domingo. 

 Indeed, this was substantially the view of the case accepted by the 

 earlier authors. As far back as 1855, however, Gundlach {Journal 

 fiir Ornithologie, " 1854," 1855, extraheft, p. Ixxxiv), insisted that 

 such could not be the case, since he had found the two supposed species 

 paired together. On the strength of a series of specimens sent by him 

 to the U. S. National Museum Mr. Ridgway (Aiik, VIII, 1891, 113) 

 accepted this conclusion, which so far as I am aware has not been 

 seriously questioned since. It is significant, however, that Mr. Chap- 

 man, in the paper referred to above, says that of all the Sparrow Hawks 

 secured or observed by him in Cuba, light and dark, on no occasion 

 did he find birds of different phases mated. That such unions occa- 

 sionally occur, however, can scarcely be questioned in view of Gund- 

 lach's testimony, but the fact need in no way militate against the view 

 here advanced that two species may be involved. The variability 

 of the dark birds would then be explainable by what we now know of 

 the laws of inheritance, and even the fact (if it is a fact) alleged by Mr. 

 Cory, that light and dark birds have been taken from the same nest, 

 on a similar hypothesis. This is certainly a case demanding further 

 investigation in the field, as in no other way can a final conclusion be 

 reached. While I do not venture at present to make the formal 

 nomenclatural shift indicated, I predict that this will eventually be 

 found necessary. 



The recognition of a genus Cerchneis for the American Sparrow 

 Hawks, while doubtless justifiable, seems to me to involve also the 

 raising of certain other groups of Falco to generic rank, and as I have 

 neither the time nor the material for an investigation of this kind, I 

 follow for the present the nomenclature of the American Ornithologists' 

 Union Check List of North American Birds. 



This is the commonest hawk in the Isle of Pines, being generally 

 distributed in the drier parts, back from the coast and the rivers. 

 Nests with young birds were found about Nueva Gerona and Los 

 Indios in April and May, built in holes in dead palm- and pine-trees, 

 twenty or thirty feet up. The birds of this species are wont to follow 

 the fires kindled by the natives in clearing the land of brush and 



