THE BIRDS OF HAITI AND THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 11 



seems to have been long resident in the colony. He is said to have 

 died in Paris in 1785. His sketches include fruits and vegetables, 

 insects, fish, crustaceans; and mollusks as well as birds. 



Francis Alexander Stanislaus, Baron de Wimpffen, who traveled 

 in Hispaniola from 1788 to 1790, gives occasional mention of birds, 

 noting especially the presence of guinea-fowl, wild turkeys, and 

 curassows, introduced gallinaceous birds that he hunted as game. In 

 passing the islet of Alta V.ela he described it as " a mere rock, with 

 a few green spots about it " and says that it is a " retreat for a 

 prodigious number of sea birds." 



Vieillot seems to have traveled in Haiti between 1790 and 1800, 

 the date and the length of his sojourn not being definitely indicated 

 in the sources seen at this time. In the introduction to his Histoire 

 Naturelle des Oiseaux de l'Amerique Septentrional (vol. 1, 1807, pp. 

 1, 2) he notes that during a sojourn in Hispaniola he made many 

 notes on the birds which he prepared in the form of a memoir and 

 offered to Buffon. The latter had already completed the volumes on 

 birds in his great natural history and therefore advised Vieillot to 

 return to North America, gather further material, and prepare a 

 complete account of the ornithology of that continent. Subsequently 

 Vieillot began this undertaking but it was ten years after his return 

 from Hispaniola before he came again to America. In his final ac- 

 count he incorporated his notes made in Hispaniola but after the 

 issuance of two volumes the work was suspended and never com- 

 pleted. Though he makes no reference to definite localities it is prob- 

 able that his investigations were made in Haiti, at that time a pros- 

 perous French colony, since travel in the Spanish part of the island 

 was difficult, and the Spanish were not on too good terms with the 

 French. Further where he gives the local names of birds these are 

 the Creole appellations current in the Republic of Haiti to-daj^. He 

 described particularly the sharp-shinned hawk of the island (Ac- 

 cipiter striatus striatus), and is the first naturalist to name in modern 

 scientific form a species that he had taken personally on the island. 



Among the various historians who in their chronicles of progress 

 and travel in Hispaniola have made reference to birds special men- 

 tion must be made of Moreau de Saint -Mery who published in 1797 

 and 1798 two separate works of two volumes each, one dealing with 

 the French part of the island and the other with the Spanish section, 

 in which he describes with much detail the various parts of the island 

 with remarks on the people, the agriculture, the forests, the histor}^ 

 and a multitude of other subjects. While his reference to birds is 

 casual his work serves as a source of valuable collateral information, 

 particularly as regards interest in science in general, and has given 

 much data that otherwise would have been lost. 



