522 PROCEEDINGS OF TUE NATIONAL MUSEUM. v* l. 54. 



able by the fact that the island when first discovered was covered 

 by dense forests such as crows inhabit in Porto Kico at the present 

 time. The French who founded a colony on St. Croix some time 

 after 1650 (the island was first settled about 1625) found their settle- 

 ment very unhealthy. After severe losses from fevers and other 

 diseases fostered, as they thought, by the dense, damp tree growth 

 they finally set fire to the forest and burned off the densely wooded 

 covering of the entire island. To this great confiagration may be 

 ascribed the present-day paucity of species that make up the exist- 

 ing island fauna as there can be no question but that many indi- 

 genous forms were destroyed either by the fire or by the sudden 

 change in ecological conditions that followed it. Elsewhere in the 

 West Indies species of the genus Corvus have retreated before the 

 clearing of forested areas. This is especially true in Porto Eico 

 where Gundlach found Corvus leucognaphalus common in 1875, 

 while at the present time the few known survivors of this bird are 

 restricted to the Luquillo Forest above Mameyes, the only wooded 

 area of any extent remaining on the island. Complete destruction 

 of the forests of St. Croix might therefore have led to the extermina- 

 tion of the crow had it been resident there in pre-Columbian times. 



EXPLANATION OF PLATE 82. 



(All figures about natural size.) 



Figs. 1-2. Right femur of NesotrocMs dehooyi type, Cat. No. 225845,U.S.N.M. 

 3-5. Right tibio-tarsus of NesotrocMs dehooyi. Cat. No. 225845, U.S.N.M. 



