NATURE STUDY IN SCHOOLS. 221) 



THE MAN-OF-WAR BIRDS AND CORTS GANNET, 



BY 



C. J. Maynard. 



As the teiminal point of an eight month's journey through Florida, the 

 Bahamas, Hayti, and Jamaica, which I made in 1887—88, I had fixed upon 

 the smaller Cayman Islands. These islands lie in the Carribbean Sea, about 

 one hundred and twenty miles due south of the middle portion of Cuba 

 and about the s«me distance north- east of Jamaica. 



I left Kingston on the morning of March 18 on board a small schoon- 

 er, which was outward bound for Grand Cayman, an island which lies 

 some distance south of the two keys which I wished to visit, namely, Cay- 

 man Brae and Little Cayman, but for a consideration, the captain agreed 

 to go a sufficient distance out of his way and drop me on Cayman Brae, 

 and by daylight of the second day out we were off the east end of that 

 island. 



Cayman Brae is a small key, twelve miles long by an average width 

 of two miles. The eastern end is high, cliffs rising abruptly from the sea 

 to the height of one hundred and eighty feet, but on the northern and 

 southern sides this pile of rock is bordered by a strip of intervale, or low- 

 land, several hundred yards wide, though even here the cliffs maintain their 

 percepitous character. 



As we rounded the head of the key, and opened the cliffs on the north 

 side, I immediately saw that there were a large number of birds flying 

 about their rocky sides. A moment's inspection proved that these were 

 the beautiful tropic bird and a species of gannet. As I landed on the west end 

 of the island at a small settlement, I did not have an opportunity of see- 

 ing any of the gannets until after a month or more when I went to 

 Little Cayman which lies seven miles west of Cayman Brae. 



Here on the south side of the key I found a large colony of gannets 

 and man of war birds breeding. The gannets proved to be a species quite 

 new to science and I called it Cory's gannet ( Sula coryi ) a description ot 

 which I published in my Contributions to Science, 1889, Vol. I, page 40. 

 Little Cayman is about six miles long and [about a mile in width, and on 

 the south side near the west end is the only settlement on the island. Thus 

 consists of about ten small houses, scattered along the shore for about a half 

 mile. 



Between the houses and the sea is a fine grove of cocoa-nut trees which 

 extends along the shore to the eastward for about a mile and a half beyond 

 the houses^ terminating in a large mangrove swamp that stretches from the 



