NO. 2245. BUNES OF BIRDS PROM WEST INDIES— WETAIORE. 521 



St. Croix are much larger and heavier than the others and illustrate 

 what may have been sexual differences as an equivalent difference is 

 found between males and females of Gallirallus australis (the males 

 in Gallirallus being larger). The average difference in size between 

 the series of tibio-tarsi from St. Thomas and St. Croix is so ap- 

 parent that the birds from the two islands seem distinct when it is 

 supposed that the variation among individual bones from the same 

 locality is due to sex. This point, however, is uncertain, while it is 

 a fact that the largest bones from St. Thomas are equal to the small- 

 est ones from St. Croix. For this reason it is thought inadvisable 

 at the present time to separate the bird from St. Croix as a distinct 

 form. There is at best considerable uncertainty as to the exact place 

 of origin of bone remains from kitchen midden deposits, but it may 

 be supposed that where so many bones representing one species are 

 found, that these came from the island on which the midden was 

 located. There is no proof, however, that they belong to a truly 

 indigenous species, nor is it known that they were not brought as 

 needed from somewhere else. The comparative abundance of the 

 remains of this rail in these deposits when compared with other 

 species of birds indicate that it possessed flesh that was held in high 

 esteem as a source of food. This being the case, there is no evidence to 

 show that these rails may not have been kept as captives and trans- 

 ported from island to island by their owners. We may suppose, how- 

 ever, that this was not true to any great extent for rails in general 

 feed largely upon animal food and are not readily kept in captivity 

 for any length of time. 



CORVUS LEUCOGNAPHALUS Daudin. 



The discovery of bones of Corvus in these kitchen midden deposits 

 is of great interest, as no species of this genus has been recorded 

 farther east in the West Indies than Porto Eico. The crow is rep- 

 resented in the present collection by a femur, one nearly entire 

 humerus, and the proximal end of a second one. These bones are 

 identical in configuration with the form found in Porto Rico save 

 that the" entire humerus has the shaft more slender. Humeri of male 

 birds only are available for comparison so that this difference may 

 be considered sexual as males and females of Corvus hrachijrhynchos 

 Brehm from the United States differ in the same way. 



The presence of these bones in kitchen midden deposits is of course 

 not certain proof of the former presence of a crow native to Sfc. 

 Croix, but may be taken as representing a possibility. Crows may 

 have been kept captive in cages and transported from island to island 

 or may have been killed and eaten on Porto Rico and their bones 

 brought in some way to St. Croix. That there might have been an 

 indigenous bird of this genus in St. Croix is made somewhat prob- 



