THE BIRDS OF HAITI AND THE DOMINICAN" REPUBLIC 5 



A remarkable depression called the Cul-de-Sac Plain begins in 

 Haiti at the sea north of Port-au-Prince and continues to the south- 

 east as a broad valley, crossing the Dominican frontier to be 

 known as the Enriquillo Basin and reaches the sea again at the 

 Bahia de Neiba. In the early Quaternary period, no distant time 

 geologically, this great trough was a strait of the sea completely 

 separating the southwestern part of Hispaniola from the main mass. 

 At present it has an average altitude of only 50 meters or less above 

 the sea, certain areas being actually below sea-level. The Etang 

 Saumatre in the Cul-de-Sac area of Haiti is a broad lake of brackish 

 water, while to the eastward lies Lake Enriquillo, a body of heavily 

 concentrated brine whose surface in 1919 lay 44 meters below sea 

 level. This great valley of the Cul-de-Sac is dry and arid, and in 

 places shows clearly its recent emergence above the sea in its shell- 

 strewn sands and exposed growths of corals. 



South of this great depression there begins the mountain complex 

 known at its eastern end as the Sierra de Bahoruco which comes to 

 the Caribbean Sea at Barahona, with spurs extending southward 

 from the main range elsewhere toward the coast. To the west this 

 mountain mass enters Haiti to form the backbone of the southern 

 peninsula of that republic, where the mountain system is considered 

 to be of two parts, the eastern being the Massif de la Selle, and the 

 western the Massif de la Hotte that continues to the end of the 

 peninsula. The Bahoruco range, Morne La Selle, and many of the 

 ridges that surround Morne La Hotte have extensive forests of 

 pine with an abundant turf of grass, mingled with low, dense rain 

 forest. Morne La Selle is said to reach an elevation of 2,680 meters. 

 The air is cool and pleasant in the high altitudes, suggestive of that 

 of the mountains of Arizona and New Mexico. Frost comes occa- 

 sionally in winter on the great ridge of La Selle. This mountain 

 complex includes the bare ridges that rise back of Petionville, and 

 extends west to a low divide running from Jacmel to Grand Goave. 

 There is however no abrupt surface transition at this line which has 

 been chosen to limit the eastern extension of the Massif de la Hotte, 

 the basis of division being difference in geological formation. The 

 eastern part of the Massif de la Hotte as far west as the mountain 

 pass that carries the road from Miragoane to Aquin is relatively low 

 but to the west the ridge becomes higher culminating finally between 

 Les Cayes and Jeremie in the mountainous region of Morne La Hotte, 

 whose elevation is not definitely known but whose highest points rise 

 well above 2,000 meters elevation. Throughout the entire higher 

 areas of this southern mountain range rains are heavy, culminating 

 finally in the almost constant precipitation on Morne La Hotte, 



