298 Annals of the Carnegie Museum. 



everywhere. A number of prints of fossil shells of various kinds are 

 observed in the coral rock. Fires devastate this part of the island, 

 burning up the soil and the very roots of the trees, and leaving nothing 

 behind but the bare coral rock, and the region is very sparsely in- 

 habited. The trees of this region are mostly hard wood, there being 

 no pines and very few royal palms." 



The country north of the Cienaga is entirely different. It consists 

 mostly of dry open pine-woods, interspersed with groves of royal 

 palms and with dense jungly vegetation along the water-courses. There 

 are great areas of savanna land, upon which even the palm-trees will 

 not grow. In general, the country is extremely infertile, and may 

 only be compared with similar areas in the Province of Pinar del Rio 

 in Cuba, where like conditions obtain. There are a number of hills, 

 most of which are composed of metamorphosed igneous rock, much 

 weathered and eroded, while near Nueva Gerona there are two 

 parallel chains of limestone hills, one, called the Sierra de Casas, 

 lying to the west of the river on which the town is situated, and the 

 other the Sierra de Caballos, lying to the eastward. The Sierra de 

 Casas does not reach the sea, but the other Sierra, after extending some 

 miles through the savanna country, reappears after a short break and 

 pushes out to the north coast, where it ends in a bold, precipitous 

 headland. This detached extension of the Sierra de Caballos is known 

 locally as " Calumpo/' a corruption of Punta del Colombo. The lime- 

 stone in these hills is brilliant glistening white, of a beautiful quality, 

 and much harder and more marble-like than I have seen in any of 

 the limestone outcrops in Cuba from one end of the island to the 

 other. The mountain-sides are clothed with dense, thorny scrub, 

 and with scattered high woods wherever there may be sufificient soil, 

 while the shores of the whole island, of course, are fringed with man- 

 grove swamps, except where there are a few white sandy beaches. 

 Most of our collecting was done from Nueva Gerona in the vicinity 

 of the limestone mountains and in the savannas. Mr. Link worked 

 principally in the region about Los Indios, a locality which allowed 

 him access to the Cienaga and the region where the greatest variety 

 of birds was to be obtained. So much for the topography of the island. 



Its climate is excellent during the dry season, but the rains begin 

 in May and last until October, and I am told that the face of the country 

 is entirely changed, and that the moist conditions obtaining make 

 life far less agreeable than during the winter months. Generally 



