- 36 - 
G-uadaloupe . 
1894 
February 28 We reached G-uadaloupe some time during the night 
but lay off the mouth of the harbor until daybreak. When 
I came on deck the steamer was running up a narrow bay with 
a low, wooded shore on the right and cloud-capped mountains 
(one of them is a smoking volcano) on the left. The town 
is rather large, flat, with paved sidewalks and stone gutters, 
in all of which clear water is running. There are some 
beautiful gardens, and a good many fine shade trees, chiefly 
sand-box and mahogany trees. The people are nearly all 
negroes and there are few among them who speak or understand 
a single word of English, French being the universal lan¬ 
guage here. 
As we walked up a broad street shaded by a double 
row of gigantic sand-box trees, I heard a sweet, plaintive 
bird song wholly new to me and really the first bird music 
that I have thus far listened to. It resembled most the 
song of Dendroica dominica . having the same dreamy, "far 
away" quality but - it was even sweeter and more expressive. 
hesitation or 
Without the slightest/reservation I should rate it as the 
most musical song that I have ever heard from a Dendroica — 
for a Dendroica the bird proved to be. I had a good view 
of one from beneath and saw it sing. The under parts were 
of a pale yellow much as in the female of our Dendroica 
aestiva . I saw no markings of any kind, although the bird 
