﻿No. 14. 



NOETH AMEEIOAN FAUNA. April 29, 1899. 



GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE TRES MARIAS ISLANDS, MEXICO. 



By E. W. Nelson. 

 INTRODUCTION. 



The Tres Marias islands are situated off the west coast of Mexico, 

 about 65 miles west from the port of San Bias. These islands have 

 been known since early in the history of the ^ew World, and in 1532 

 were named Las Islas de la Magdalena by Diego de Mendoza. Many 

 of the early explorers sailed about them, and Dampier states that 

 they were familiar to the buccaneers who visited these shores. They 

 are mentioned by several of the later voyagers, especially the English 

 exploring expeditions which visited the west coast of Mexico in the 

 first half of the present century. During all this time, however, they 

 remained uninhabited and nothing definite was known or xDublished 

 concerning their character or products. It is said at San Bias that the 

 first men who lived upon the islands were bandits, who took refuge 

 there, and had a secure retreat from which they harried the mainland 

 settlements for several years. Finally, the abundance of Spanish 

 cedar became known, a settlement of woodcutters was established on 

 Marie Madre, and this island has since been continuously inhabited. 



Ool. A. J. Grayson, a naturalist who lived for many years on the west 

 coast of Mexico, was the first to publish any detailed information about 

 the islands.^ Most of this information is contained in the various papers 

 embodying the results of his three trips to the Tres Marias in 1865, '66, 

 and '67, published by himself, George Lawrence, and W. E. Bryant. 

 In 1881 Alphonse Forrer, a natural history collector, spent some time on 

 Maria Madre collecting specimens for the British Museum, but no de- 

 tailed account of his work has been published. No other naturalist is 

 known to have visited the islands until the spring of 1897. In April of 

 that year Mr. E. A. Goldman and I visited the port of San Bias for the 



^Mr. John Xantus, who spent several years subsequent to 1859 on the west coast of 

 Mexico, was supposed to have visited the islands, on account of several specimens 

 of birds which he sent to the Smithsonian Institution, labeled " Tres Marias Islands, 

 1861." But as no one else has collected any of these species, and as Xantus sent in 

 no birds which have been taken by others on the islands, it is safe to conclude that 

 he did not visit the Tres Marias. 



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