Birds of the Cayman Islands . 
141 
of the hosts of American migrants which visit the islands 
for the winter months only. 
So far as I have been able to ascertain, nothing was known 
of the birds of the Cayman Islands prior to the year 1886—- 
at any rate, as far as professed ornithologists are concerned. 
In the summer of that year Mr. W. B. Richardson visited the 
islands on behalf of Mr. C. B. Cory, the well-known American 
authority on West-Indian birds. As the result of this 
expedition Mr. Cory published a description of no less than 
thirteen new species of birds which had been found on 
the Grand Cayman alone (‘ Auk/ iii. pp. 497-502, 1886). 
Following this he described a new Vireo from the same 
island in 1887 (‘ Auk/ iv. p. 7, 1887), and published a list 
of the birds collected by Mr. C. J. Maynard on the islands 
of Little Cayman and Cayman Brae in 1889 (‘ Auk/ vi. p. 30, 
1889). In May 1887, Mr. Charles H. Townsend paid a 
short visit to Grand Cayman, and Mr. Robert Ridgway 
described, among other birds contained in his small collec¬ 
tion, a new species of Dendrceca (Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus. vol. x. 
1887). 
From this date until the year 1896, when Mr. Taylor, of 
Jamaica, went there on behalf of the Tring Museum, no 
other collector seems to have visited the islands. Mr. Taylor 
made a magnificent collection of birds which are now in 
Mr. Walter Rothschild's Museum, and among them were 
examples of a new species of Finch from Grand Cayman which 
Dr. Hartert described as Melopyrrha taylori (Nov. Zooh 
vol. iii. p. 257, 1896). 
In January 1904, while on board the yacht ‘Emerald' 
chartered by Sir Frederic Johnstone, I had the opportunity, 
in company with the late Dr. Bowdler Sharpe, of seeing 
something of the bird-life on all the three Caymans. 
On two other occasions I have visited the Grand Cayman 
and Little Cayman with Sir Frederic, and I have written 
a few remarks on some birds which I collected there (‘ The 
Ibis/ 1909, pp. 339-347). 
In March 1904, Lord Crawford visited the Caymans in 
