45 
fell during the night and we did not reach the island until the 
morning of December 3. Atwood Cay is now uninhabited 
except at certain seasons, when small parties from the neigh- 
boring islands visit it in order to gather cascarilla bark, the bark 
of Croton Eluterta. This shrub is still fairly common at certain 
localities on this island, but in view of the rate at which it is now 
being uprooted, it seems only a question of a short time when the 
species will become very scarce. Atwood Cay, we believe, had 
never been visited by botanists before and the marine flora in 
particular we found of much interest, including several forms 
which we think will prove new to science ; but up to this time we 
had suffered considerable delay owing to head winds and calms, 
so on the morning of December 5, after a stop of only two days, 
we took advantage of a brisk fair wind and set sail for the island 
of Mariguana, and the intervening distance of fifty-three miles 
west end of the island, where the soil is said to be especially 
good, but with the wind then prevailing it was not advisable to 
launch a boat or to anchor at this point, so we skirted the more 
sheltered south shore until about ten miles west of Abraham 
Bay, where we dropped anchor. Mariguana is nearly twenty- 
eight miles long and has a maximum width of six or seven miles. 
Its highest elevation is given on the charts as 101 feet. This 
island, like Atwood Cay, had not previously been visited by 
botanical collectors, so far as our information goes, and we 
accordingly devoted a week to exploring the southern and 
western parts of the island. The isolation and scanty popula- 
tion of Mariguana make it an attractive resort for various kinds 
of birds, of which the most showy and perhaps the most inter- 
esting is the red flamingo. A flock of between one hundred and 
two hundred of these picturesque birds was at the time of our 
visit dividing its attention between a shallow salt-pond at the 
eastern end of the island and the almost equally shallow bay or 
reef-harbor adjacent. Owing to a long-continued drought, 
many of the plants in this region were in a badly dried-up con- 
dition and scarcely suitable for the herbarium, yet nearly seven 
