34 BULLETIN" 15 5, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



mingled with the throbbing beat of distant work drums to whose 

 irregular cadence laborers toiled and sang in a remote world of 

 cultivated fields far below. As no zoological collector had visited 

 the crest of this mountain ridge previously so far as known, various 

 specimens taken were new to science. Smoothly scaled lizards, found 

 under flat stones and preserved in a bottle of native rum purchased 

 from the load borne on the head of a traveling merchant woman, 

 proved to be a new genus, and landshells gathered at random were 

 also new. By means of a tall pine tree felled for a ladder Wetmore 

 and Ekman climbed down into a great sink hole and discovered in a 

 sheltered crevice bones of extinct mammals that ranged the island be- 

 fore the coming of Columbus. Returning April 17 by way of Cha- 

 pelle Faure in Nouvelle Touraine Wetmore journeyed April 20 past 

 the Artibonite River (PI. 10) to Hinche in the level Central Plain 

 where he was welcomed at the experiment station by Mr. and Mrs. 

 J. E. Boog-Scott, and pleasantly entertained while he explored for 

 strange birds. (PI. 5.) April 21 he visited the caves at L'Atalaye, 

 to view the excavations from which had come the remains of the 

 giant owl Tyto ostologa and other birds. (PI. 11 and 12.) April 

 24 he visited another cave at the Bassin Zime to the northeast, and 

 on April 25 returned to Port-au-Prince. 



On April 26 he journeyed by airplane through courtesy of the 

 Marine Corps from Port-au-Prince to the north over the Central 

 Plain, past the ruins of the Citadelle of Christophe perched on its 

 high hilltop, to Cap-Ha'itien and then overland by motor car to 

 Poste Charbert where work continued until April 28, including a visit 

 to Caracol on the coast on April 27. Returning by plane with Capt. 

 R. A. Pressley he crossed to Gonaives and for miles flew low over 

 the coastal swamps viewing the myriads of water birds from the air 

 and finally locating the flamingos of which he was in search. 



Early on the morning of April 30 he left the hospitable home of 

 Dr. and Mrs. George F. Freeman and began the long journey by 

 motor car to Santo Domingo City, proceeding by way of Belladere 

 and Comendador. That night he stopped in San Juan in the Do- 

 minican Republic, continuing the following morning to Azua to 

 arrange details of importation of part of his collecting outfit, and 

 then returned to Comendador to claim guns and ammunition which 

 it had been necessary to leave in the police station the night before. 

 Santo Domingo City was reached late that evening. He was re- 

 ceived with the greatest courtesy by Mr. E. E. Young, American 

 Minister, and by officials of the Dominican Republic, and on May 

 4 continued by motor car through Catarrey and Aguacate, scenes 

 of early investigations by Cherrie, to Bonao, Cotui, and San Fran- 

 cisco de Macoris. The following morning he went by train to San- 



