350 BIRDS 



should a small island about twenty miles long by eight miles broad with abso- 

 lutely no physiographic features produce three species of Geothlypis ? Do they 

 differ in habits, song, or character of country they inhabit? That is a prob- 

 lem to tax the energies of an active field naturalist. 



NOTES ON THE ZOOGEOGRAPHICAL POSITION OP THE BAHAMA ISLANDS. 



The West Indies north of the island of Tobago, including the Bahama 

 Islands, comprise a region of the Neotropical Eealm, that from an 

 ornithological point of view may be considered, from the peculiarities of the 

 birds, of equal rank to the Forth American Eegion of Dr. Allen. The islands 

 may be, using the nomenclature proposed by Dr. Allen in his papers on Zoo- 

 geography, divided into three provinces, as follows: (1) a Lesser Antillean 

 Province, consisting of the islands from and including Grenada, north to the 

 Anegada Channel, known collectively as the Windward and Leeward Islands; 

 (2) a Greater Antillean Province, consisting of Cuba, the Caymans, Jamaica, 

 Porto Eico, and the islands east to the Anegada Channel; (3) a Bahaman 

 Province, comprising the group of islands of that name. The last must not 

 be considered faunally of equal rank to either of the other two, as it possesses 

 only one peculiar genus of birds, and only one indigenous land mammal, but 

 from geographic considerations this is the best arrangement that can be made 

 at present and all the provinces as herein defined present more or less striking 

 peculiarities. The Greater Antilles from their greater age and longer isolation 

 from the mainland, if they ever were connected, possess the most peculiar 

 endemic fauna; the Bahamas, from their recent oceanic origin, contain the 

 least. In the present connection we are only concerned with the Bahaman 

 Province. 



Mr. P. M. Chapman in an able paper" on the origin of the Bahama 

 avifauna has covered the ground very thoroughly, showing that while on 

 account of their oceanic origin a considerable portion of the fauna is fortuitous, 

 as in all true oceanic islands, yet from their proximity to Florida on the one 

 hand, and Cuba and Haiti on the other, the majority of the resident land 

 birds have been derived from those respective areas, of which Cuba has fur- 

 nished the most. Though a considerable number of birds have been des- 

 cribed or added to the Bahama list since Mr. Chapman's paper was published, 

 they have been of such a nature as not to materially affect his conclusions, 



'American Naturalist, 1891, pp. 528-539. 



