1898] ZOOLOGICAL JAMAICA 169 
the latter were often found in the banana ‘trash.’ Tree-frogs are 
common, especially the species which lays its eggs in the water held 
in the base of the leaves of the Bromeliac, where we often found the 
tadpoles swimming about. Lizards of all sorts and sizes abound, 
some of them being beautifully coloured. Two or three small 
iguanas were also brought into the laboratory, but they are rather 
rare. At Port Antonio we heard a good deal about Jamaica’s most 
interesting mammal, the agouti, or, as it is more often called, the 
cony. It is peculiar to the island, though there is an allied species 
in Cuba. Though now quite rare it is still to be met with in the 
John Crow and: Blue mountains. There are several specimens in the 
small menagerie of native animals kept at the Jamaica Institute in 
Kingston, and they have bred there. At Port Antonio we were 
offered a pair alive for twenty dollars, but we were unable to procure 
any, dead or alive, at any less price. 
Most noticeable and best known of all the native fauna, the 
birds of Jamaica demand a special word. Over 200 species have 
been recorded, of which 40, almost exactly one fifth, are peculiar 
to the island. Of the remainder about 50 may be classed as West 
Indian, while about 90 are distinctly North American, many of 
our common New England birds being migrants or winter visitors. 
There are four or five summer visitors from the mainland of South 
and Central America, but they form a very insignificant part of the 
avifauna. Much the greater number of water-birds are more or 
less well known in the United States, and the same may be said 
of the warblers. But the doves, cuckoos, swifts, humming-birds, 
parrots, and fly-catchers are almost exclusively West Indian, and a 
large number of them are distinctively Jamaican. On the coast, 
besides the man-of-war birds and pelicans already mentioned, the 
tropic-bird occurs and terns are abundant, especially in Kingston 
harbour. The two common humming-birds are found in all culti- 
vated districts; one is interesting because of its very small size, the 
other because of its rich, dark-purple plumage and long, forked tail. 
About Kingston the small palm-swift is abundant, and nests in the 
cocoa-nut trees in the very heart of the city. The most gorgeously 
coloured bird, the tody, is one of the smallest, and its bright red 
and vivid green plumage is very striking. The two fly-catchers, 
which correspond so closely to our king-bird and phoebe as easily 
to deceive even a careful observer, are especially common at Port 
Antonio, where the peculiar cuckoo, Crotophaga, is also always in 
evidence. 
It is curious to note the paucity of names among the natives 
for even the common animals, a single name being made to serve 
for two or more widely different forms. The name ‘sea-cat’ is 
given to the octopus, and to large medusae, especially Cassiopea, 
