373 
on the Birds of St. Croix. 
my passage from St. Thomas to Halifax, Nova Scotia, towards 
the end of August 1857, a day or two before arriving at the 
Bermudas, two or three came round the steamer, and these 
seemed to me to be Th. wilsoni. North of Bermuda we had a 
larger escort, amounting perhaps to forty or fifty at once, and 
there were clearly two species among them, but which they 
might have been I do not pretend to say. We were going at a 
good speed; and I fished for them to no purpose.”—A. N. 
We have now enumerated all the species of birds which we 
have satisfactory reasons for believing to be found in St. Croix; 
but we must beg leave to subjoin a few remarks on some which 
have been said by former observers to occur in the neighbouring- 
islands, and which further investigation may discover in the 
locality of which we have been treating. 
The earliest work noticing the Natural History of the Danish 
West Indian Colonies, with which we are acquainted, is that of 
Dr. West, published, it would seem, at Copenhagen in 1793. 
The original edition we have not ourselves examined; but we 
have seen a translation of it into German* *, which was made the 
following year, from which it appears that, though the Flora 
and some portions of the Fauna are more or less fully treated of, 
only two birds are mentioned (p. 243), namely— 
“Ardea ccerulea. v [ulgo ~\. Gaulding , Crab-eater.” 
and “Fulica chloropus. v. Coob [sic], Wasserhuhn .” 
The former of these is, we imagine, not the Linnean species of 
that name, but Butorides virescens (No. 46) of this paper, while 
the latter is, of course, Gallinula galeata (No. 43). 
The next author who treats of the Zoology of the Virgin 
Islands, to which group St. Croix and St. Thomas belong, is 
M. Ledru, one of the naturalists accompanying the expedition 
(whereof the celebrated Mauge was also a member) commanded 
Mr. G. R. Gray’s carefully drawn-up list of the synonyms of this and 
three other very distinct species which have been confounded with it, will 
be found in the ‘ Zoologist ’ for 1852 {x. p. 3696). The short list given 
by the late Mr. Yarrell (B. B. Suppi. 2, p. 63, and 3rd Edit. iii. p. 643), 
as well as his statement that a figure of this species is given by Forster in 
his unpublished drawings, is, I regret to say, incorrect.”—A. N. 
* “ Beytrage zur Beschreibung von St. Croix, &c. : von Hans West, 
Rector am Westindischen Scliulinstitut, &c. Kopenhagen, 1794.” 8vo. 
