-56 
St. Thomas to Trinidad. 
General Impressions of the West Indies* 
1894 
February 25- Now that I have finished my trip "down the islands" 
March 4 it may be as well to give briefly some of the general im¬ 
pressions which it has caused. 
I have been struck (l) by the entire absence of 
Vultures and Swallows ( Progne is of course resident on a 
few of the islands and C helidon occurs in winter, but I 
did not see either species); (2) by the scarcity of Hawks 
4 saw also Falco sparverius or its close allies of the 
same genus); (3) by the fact that except on St. Vincent 
there are practically- few or no musical bird voices to 
be heard during a morning walk through the towns or their 
outskirts or even(apparently) in the woods on the lower 
slopes of the mountains; (4) that,by day at least, even in 
the early morning or late afternoon there are literally 
no insect sounds inthe fields or woods near the towns; (5) 
that save on Dominica and Santa Cruz butterflies and dragon 
flies are comparatively scarce and inconspicuous (we saw 
only one butterfly yesterday on Barbados); (6) that house 
flies are everywhere exceedingly scarce even in the towns 
and about decaying vegetable or animal matter. 
Thus far I have seen only two moscp.itos and on none 
of the islands, as far as I can learn, are they ever a 
source of serious annoyance to the people. 
The general scarcity of water birds is also a surprise. 
I have not seen a Gull or Tern since we reached St. Thomas. 
