Mongoose 
Spotted ? 
Sandpiper s 
Frigate Birds 
The Mongoose has been introduced on Antigua and is 
now very numerous and a terrible scourge to the planters. 
It has utterly exterminated the Quail, reduced the numbers 
of the Guinea Fowl very seriously, made poultry raising 
well-nigh impossible (the price of chickens and turkeys 
has doubled within the past few years) and now it is 
actually eating sugar cane and has developed an especial 
and very ruinous fondness for pineapples. In their despera¬ 
tion the planters have resorted to a singular method of 
reducing the numbers of this pernicious little beast. They 
have trapped a number of the males and after inoculating 
them with syphilis have set them free again. The English¬ 
man who told us all this believes that this remedy will in 
time prove effectual. He says that the Mongoose has been 
turned out on nearly all the larger islands of the Lesser 
Antilles except Montserrat. 
On our way back to the ship, I saw a pair of Tringae 
which looked and flew like Actitis . They were on a small 
rocky island. 
Soon after reaching the steamer I saw my first 
Frigate Birds -- two of them — soaring in circles over a 
volcanic peak about half a mile away. Through the glass I 
made out their white heads (both were young birds). Their 
flight disappointed me but probably I did not see it under 
favorable conditions 
