THE AUK: 



A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF 



ORNITHOLOGY. 

 Vol. xxii. October, 1905. No. 4. 



THE WEST INDIAN PARROTS. 



BY AUSTIN H. CLARK. 



From the writings of the earlier authors on West Indian subjects 

 who include in their works accounts of the ornithology of those 

 islands as it was in their time, we find that (although the continen- 

 tal systematists included many species which we have no reason to 

 suppose ever inhabited the islands) there were then certain now 

 unrecognized, but apparently well-authenticated forms, bridging 

 over gaps in the avifauna of the district as we understand it at the 

 present day. That these early writers were aware of the difference 

 in the ornithological conditions in the various islands, and of the 

 differences between the avifauna of the islands and that of the 

 mainland, is amply proved by their statements; and I see no 

 reason why we should not accept their assertions as true, at any 

 rate until they can be proved to be false. 



The only genera of Psittaci which appear ever to have occurred 

 in the West Indies are Ara (Martinique, ? Dominica, Guadeloupe : 

 Haiti, Cuba, including the Isle of Pines, and Jamaica ; now every- 

 where extinct), Amazona (St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Martinique, 

 Dominica, Guadeloupe : Porto Rico, Haiti, the Bahamas, Cuba, 

 Grand Cayman, and Jamaica, extinct on Martinique and Guade- 

 loupe), and Conurus (Barbados, Martinique, Dominica, Guade- 

 loupe : St. Croix, St. Thomas, Porto Rico, Haiti, Cuba, and 

 Jamaica, extinct in the Lesser Antilles). We thus have two dis- 

 tinct faunal areas indicated by West Indian Psittaci; (1) a 

 Greater Antillean, with its center at Jamaica (Ara, two species of 

 Amazona, Conurus), extending to Cuba and Haiti (Ara, Amazona, 



