2 BULLETIN" 15 5, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



tensive it was decided finally to make these reports comprehensive 

 accounts of the various groups covered so as to bring this information 

 down to date. 



The report on the birds of Hispaniola was projected originally 

 by Dr. Charles W. Richmond, Associate Curator of Birds and Mr. 

 Bradshaw H. Swales, Honorary Assistant Curator of Birds, in the 

 United States National Museum. These two worked over the collec- 

 tions in a preliminary way as they were received from Doctor Abbott 

 and published descriptions of a number of new forms. At the close of 

 1926 Doctor Richmond became engrossed in other matters and with- 

 drew from this cooperative enterprise, which was continued by Mr. 

 Swales in collaboration with Dr. Alexander Wetmore, Assistant 

 Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Mr. Swales went over 

 much of the literature published in English for records, and before 

 his final illness and death on January 23, 1928, examined the pre- 

 liminary write-up of the accounts of the first seventy forms of birds 

 here treated. The surviving author has carded the remaining litera- 

 ture, has identified carefully the entire collection of birds and has 

 written the account that follows. In view of Mr. Swales' prolonged 

 interest in the project and the extensive work that he performed in 

 assembling preliminary data it has seemed entirely fitting that he 

 should be credited as part author of this report which may on that 

 basis stand as a monument to his memory, to his contributions to the 

 science of ornithology, and to his interest in that science which has 

 brought hundreds of rare and valuable specimens to the collections 

 of the United States National Museum. 



PHYSIOGRAPHY 



The island of Hispaniola has an irregular form elongated in gen- 

 eral from east to west, and is approximately 650 kilometers long by 

 260 kilometers broad with a surface area that is said to be 73,150 

 square kilometers. (PI. 2.) It is located between Cuba and Porto 

 Rico between 17° 36' 40" and 19° 58' 20" north latitude and 68° 

 20' and 74° 30' west longitude. The Windward Passage, separating 

 Hispaniola from Cuba, descends to depths of 1,830 meters while the 

 maximum depth of Mona Passage between the Dominican Republic 

 and Porto Rico is about 580 meters. 1 



1 Data for the present section, where not given from first-hand information, is taken 

 principally from the following : Vaughan, T. W., Cooke, Wythe, Condit, D. D., Ross, C. P., 

 Woodring, W. P., and Calkins, F. C, Geological Reconnaissance of the Dominican Re- 

 public, Geol. Surv. Dominican Republic, Mem. 1, 1921, pp. 1-268, 23 pis. 



Woodring, Wendell P., Brown, John S., and Burbank, Wilbur S., Geology of the Re- 

 public of Haiti. Dept. of Public Works, 1924, pp. 1-631, 40 pis., 37 figs. 



West Indies Pilot, vol. 1, ed. 5, 1927, Hydrographic Office, Navy Dept., pp. 358-359, 

 430-541. 



