NO. 17 



SMITHSONIAN EXPLORATIONS, I916 



37 



of Samana, there are " many precipitous limestone hills," which, 

 Dr. Abbott writes, are " literally honey-combed with caves. The 

 cave (usually inhabited) near the pier of the abandoned railroad is 

 full of shell-heaps, and contains many Indian carvings, more or less 

 obliterated by smoke and lime deposits." Here he uncovered two 

 hundred or more archeological objects, including" terra cotta images, 

 fragments of pottery, stone pestles, carved stone plates and similar 

 material. 



After exhausting the caves in the vicinity of Samana, Dr. Abbott 

 visited the mountains of the interior, where, at El Rio,' he made a 

 most surprising discovery in the bird fauna. He writes " I had 

 heard of a very small ' parrot ' which lived in flocks in the pjnes 



Fig. 38. — Skull of Plagiodoiitia, a rodent once common in 

 Haiti and Santo Domingo, but now perhaps extinct. It was 

 eaten by the Indians and by the European settlers of the island. 

 (Enlarged.) 



on the pine cones. I suspected a crossbill — said to occur here at 

 Jarabacoa. below 2,000 feet, but the pair I shot were at near 5,000 

 feet." The bird proved to be a veritable crossbill and, what was 

 most extraordinary, a form closely related to the White-winged 

 Crossbill (Loxia leiicoptcra) , a sj^ecies restricted in the breeding 

 season to the Boreal zone of North America ( from .\laska to the 

 higher Adirondacks), migrating in winter at rare intervals as far 

 south as North Carolina. Red Crossbills, of the Loxia curvirostra 



* El Rio is " a new settlement formed 16 years ago in the upper valley of the 

 Emenoa, which flows into the Yaqui River (del Norte). Elevation about 4,000 

 feet. About 20 miles by road from Jarabacoa. There are about 600 to 800 peo- 

 ple settled within a few miles of El Rio. No town, only a shop (tienda) and 

 a cock-pit. Beautiful and fairly fertile district," according to Dr. Abbott's 

 descriptive notes. 



