THE BIRDS OF ANDROS ISLAND, BAHAMAS^ 



By John I. Northrop 



The island of Andres is the largest of the Bahama group, being 

 about ninety miles long, and forty or fifty miles across at the widest 

 part. The southern portion is separated from the northern by shallow 

 waters called "bights" ; but these are so filled with cays, as to make it 

 convenient to include all the islands under the general name of Andros. 



Like all the others of the group, Andros is entirely of coral forma- 

 tion. The country is described by the natives as either "coppet," 

 "pine-yard," or "swash." The first term is applied to the thicket 

 of angiospermous trees and shrubs that occupies the ridge along the 

 eastern coast. In most places this belt is very narrow, but near the 

 southern end it extends several miles into the interior. Back of the 

 coppet the land is comparatively level, and is covered by a forest of 

 the Bahama pine {Pinus hahamensis). As one approaches the west 

 coast, the pines become smaller and are mingled with palmettoes ; 

 finally both cease, and one sees spread before him thousands of acres 

 of level plain, supporting scarcely any vegetation except countless dwarf 

 mangroves. Here the ground is soft, and in wet weather almost en- 

 tirely under water; hence the peculiar appropriateness of the local 

 term "swash." Such is a brief description of the physical features of 

 Andros. As might naturally be supposed, the coppet proved the best 

 collecting ground for land birds, while the swash, and the lakes it 

 contained, were well stocked with many aquatic species. 



Although Andros is the largest of the Bahama Islands, it seems 

 never to have been thoroughly explored by naturalists. The first 

 record of Bahama birds is given by Catesby^ who visited Andros. 

 In 1859 and again in 1866 Dr. Bryant made a collecting trip through 

 the Bahamas and published the results in the Proceedings of the 

 Boston Society of Natural History. His two papers are devoted to 



^ The Auky Vol. VIII, No. i, January, 1891, pp. 64-80. 



^ Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands. 



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