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our visit, for the fruit-eating birds migrate with the seasons to a

higher or lower altitude as the forest fruits ripen. On the

Pacific side we found a much greater abundance of birds, and

our necks would ache from constantly gazing into the high

trees. Especially in the lower forests, going down to Santo

Domingo, we found our progress quite slow from our frequent

deviations from the trail to shoot, or perhaps to gaze at, some

beautiful bird we had hitherto only known by skins at home, or

to discover the owner of some strange and probably harsh note

of alarm. Then a deer would start up and bound along the

path, and lead us off on a futile chase until we had almost com¬

pletely lost ourselves ; and again we would follow for a hundred

yards or more the fresh foot prints of a jaguar which had only

recently passed along the same way as ourselves.


When I commenced to write my February article, I

intended it to be exclusively on the Psittacidcz, but I found just

the skins I wanted were not at hand to refer to, so the present

observations must be supposed to continue where I left off with

the Red-faced Conure.


Compared with other birds, we obtained comparatively

few members of this family from the Pacific side, and those were

mostly of the genus Pionits. Unless one found out the trees

they fed on it was almost impossible to shoot any, for whatever

part we were in on this side, it was seldom our luck to be in the

vicinity of their feeding grounds, and almost our only acquaint¬

ance with the majority of them was when they were passing

overhead morning and evening; especially was this so with the

Macaws and Amazon Parrots. The first evening of our arrival

at Santo Domingo, Mr. Hamilton shot a pair of the Ara

■chloroptera. A small flock of them passed over the clearing just

about sunset, and alighted in a tree on the edge of the forest for

a few minutes ; as soon as one fell, the rest of them arose with a

deafening noise, and some of them flew around their fallen com¬

panion which had lodged in a branch, and it was through this,

that a second one was obtained. These two were the only

Macaws that we procured during the whole of our stay there,

and I never saw them settle anywhere in our neighbourhood

again. Wherever we came across Macaws they always

inhabited the highest forest trees, and were generally out of

range. I can remember no other forest birds which flew at such

a height above the tree tops as the Macaws and some of the

Amazons did. The former look really grand flying, not in the

way of colouring, but from their fine shape and movements, and



