RAIN FOREST AND DESERT IN HISPANIOLA 



By ALEXANDER WETMORE 

 Assistant Secretary, Smithsonian Institution 



In continuation of the biological survey of Hispaniola initiated for 

 the Smithsonian Institution a number of years ago by Dr. W. L. 

 Abbott, the writer returned to Haiti in the spring of 1931, with 

 Frederick C. Lincoln, of the Bureau of Biological Survey, as com- 

 panion, to visit regions from which information on the bird life was 

 desired. We landed in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, from the Panama Line 

 Steamship A neon on March 22. After three days occupied in neces- 

 sary arrangements for our work, in which we were aided most courte- 

 ously by the American Minister Doctor Munro, by Colonel Cutts in 

 command of the Marine Corps, by officers under his command, and 

 other officials, we were off for the northern plain. In company with 

 S. W. Parish, M. W. Stirling, and H. W. Krieger, who were engaged 

 in archeological work, we proceeded to a great plantation near Terrier 

 Rouge where we were hospitably received by Mr. and Mrs. R. Petti- 

 grew and began our studies and collections. 



The thorny scrubs of the level plain had been cleared for an area 

 of 7,500 acres to allow the planting of sisal, and additional acreage 

 of like extent was at the time being cut away for extension of the 

 fields. A low, double-pointed hill, the Morne des Mammelles, rose 

 at a little distance, being the only eminence in an otherwise level land- 

 scape. On this we found the curious flat-billed vireo, a little known 

 species, to be common, and while collecting specimens we were able 

 to gain some insight into its manner of living, hitherto uncertain. Here 

 too we obtained the fourth specimen of a curious goatsucker, Antro- 

 stomus cubanensis ekmani, and other rarities. 



Returning to Port-au-Prince, one clear morning at dawn, with Sergt. 

 R. A. Trevelyan, of the Marine Corps, as pilot, I made a reconnais- 

 sance by airplane of the little known mountain range of La Hotte near 

 the end of the Tiburon Peninsula. Three peaks composed the mountain 

 mass, and it was exhilarating to circle above the deep valleys separating 

 them and to fly low over slopes heavily forested with pines and rain 

 forest, looking down into dark, wet depths of jungle unknown to man 

 and peopled in imagination with any manner of strange and unusual 

 birds. 



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