40 A NATURALIST ON DESERT ISLANDS. 



Yet out of this total there are only ten which can be 

 said to be really residents, and this, as we shall see, is 

 stretching the list bo its utmost possible limits. These 

 ten species comprise : (1) The vitelline wood- warbler 

 (Dendroica vitellina), (2) The bald pate pigeon (Columba 

 leucocephala), (3) The Swan Island thrush {Mimocichla 

 rvhripes eremita), (4) The larger frigate-bird {Fregata 

 aquila), (5) The red-footed gannet (Sula piscator), (6) The 

 common booby (Sula sula), (7) The little green bittern 

 (Butorides virescens), (8) The cat-bird or Carolina thrush 

 (Galeoscoptes carolinoisis) , (9) The black cuckoo (Croto- 

 phaga ani), (10) The myrtle-warbler (Dendroica coronata). 



I have said we have stretched the list to its utmost 

 Hmits, because in the case of Nos. 8, 9, and 10 we were not 

 able to satisfy ourselves, with any absolute certainty, 

 that these birds really do remain all the year and breed 

 on the island. No 8, the cat-bird, belongs to the family 

 of mocking birds, and was quite common. It is a sleek, 

 neat-looking bird, rather smaller than the Enghsh song- 

 thrush, and spends most of its time under cover in the 

 thick undergroAvth. Its call-note reminds one of the 

 mewing of a cat, and it has a general body-plumage of 

 slate-grey, with the top of the head black and the wings 

 and tail blackish, and under tail-coverts chestnut. Many 

 and many a time, as we wandered to and fro in the thick 

 woods, perspiring from every pore, and getting our faces 

 covered ^vith spiders' webs, which were stretched in count- 

 less hundreds from stem to stem, we said things about 

 this bird which in our cooler moments we should have been 

 ashamed of ; because from its skulking habits and dark 

 appearance it used to lead us on to stalk it, under the 

 impression that we were at last after a Hving specimen 

 of No. 3, the Swan Island thrush proper. 



There was nothing we wanted more than No. 3, but 

 anyone was welcome to the cat-bird, which has its summer 

 home in temperate North America, and only comes doAvn 

 to the West Indies to winter. The Swan Island thrush, 

 on the other hand, was supposed to be one of the island's 



