8 BULLETIN 15 5, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



his triumphal parade in Barcelona, in April, 1493, there were dis- 

 played various kinds of live parrots, and skins of birds. In the 

 journal of Columbus first voyage there is mention during the first 

 part of December, 1492, at Baie des Moustiques, Haiti, of a singing 

 bird that was mistaken for the nightingale. At Gros Morne, about 

 the middle of the month, the supposed nightingale was again re- 

 corded, with astonishment that it should sing in the winter. As 

 it was heard both day and night it is probable that reference is made 

 to the mockingbird, the only common song bird of the region that 

 sings constantly in this manner. About the middle of January, 

 1493, at the eastern end of Samana Bay, Columbus records feathers 

 of parrots and other birds used by the Indians to decorate the hair. 

 On his second voyage, at the end of August, 1494, his men are said 

 to have landed on the islet of Alta Vela where they killed pigeons 

 and other birds with sticks. 



After noting the incidental references to birds made by Columbus 

 it is of interest to record the observations of Oviedo which began 

 in the earliest days of the colonization of the island. Gonzalo Fer- 

 nandez de Oviedo y Valdez, according to the account of Los Bios, 

 came to Hispaniola at the close of 1515 and on his return to Spain 

 after a brief stay took with him " treynta papagallos " (thirty par- 

 rots). He returned to the island in 1523 to establish his family at 

 Santo Domingo City, continuing his travels on September 16, of that 

 3 7 ear. At the end of 1530 he was with his family for a brief space 

 and then continued to Spain, returning to Santo Domingo City in 

 the autumn of 1532. In 1534 he was in Spain, and on January 11, 

 1536, had returned to Hispaniola, where he had established an estate 

 on the Rio Haina three leagues from the capital. From 1546 to 

 early in 1549 he was in Spain again, where he returned in the autumn 

 of 1556, and where he died in 1557 at the age of 79 years, having 

 crossed the ocean to the New World twelve times. Oviedo's account 

 of the birds of Hispaniola is fairly extensive, and, though it is in 

 the main general, there may be definitely recognized from his descrip- 

 tions such species as the palm-chat, martin, red-tailed hawk, wood- 

 pecker, parrot, paroquet, pelican and nighthawk, as well as a number 

 of others that are included under such names as dove, heron, and 

 similar group designations. His description of the nesting of the 

 palm-chat is excellent. Because of the personal knowledge evident 

 in most of his statements we may overlook his inclusion of the story 

 current in his day of a monstrous bird with one foot webbed like that 

 of a duck, and the other armed with the talons of a hawk that fed 

 indifferently on fish or fowl, which Oviedo says was found in His- 

 paniola and Porto Rico ! His entire account of his travels and obser- 

 vations, divided into fifty chapters, is replete with interest. 



