INTRODUCTION. 
N preparing the present work it was found that much material for comparison was 
needed from a number of islands to satisfactorily determine the geographical 
distribution of many species. 
To obtain these the writer personally made three trips to the West Indies, 
and several trained collectors were sent to different islands to procure the needed 
specimens. All of the islands of any size, from the Bahamas to Tobago, which 
had not previously been collected upon, were visited and more or less thoroughly 
explored. 
Much valuable material was gathered together in this way, my private 
collection alone containing between fourteen and fifteen thousand specimens from 
the West Indian Islands, representing nearly all of the known forms, some of them 
in large series. In addition to my own collection, I have carefully examined the 
West Indian birds in the museum of the Boston Society of Natural History, 
which contains among other rarities a fine specimen of the Ava fricolor from 
Cuba. 
Some of the insular species are fast disappearing, which at one time were 
comparatively abundant. The Jamaica Petrel (4strelata caribea) is now 
claimed by some of the inhabitants of the island to be entirely extinct. The 
disappearance of this bird may be attributed to the introduction of the Mongoose 
(Herpestes), which animal, it is claimed, is proving very destructive to the bird life 
on many of the islands. It is very probable that several species have become 
extinct during the present century, for very little was known about West Indian 
ornithology up to the year 1850 and even later. How little, is shown by an able 
paper published in 1847 by Dr. Hartlaub, in which he gives a most interesting 
account of the work done up to that time. 
