206 PROCEEDINGS: BOSTON SOCIETY NATURAL HISTORY. 
with the birds of the world which include notices of species herein 
mentioned, are omitted; but the references to them may be readily 
found by consulting the bibliography and the authors listed under 
each species in Cory (’ 89 ,’ 92 ), in Ridgway’s Birds of North and 
Middle America, and in the Catalogue of birds in the British 
museum. 
Geology and Geography. 
Barbados. — Barbados, although not separated from the main 
Antillean chain or from South America by any great expanse of 
water (the nearest islands, St. Vincent and St. Lucia, being only 
about one hundred miles away), can lay claim to being truly oceanic 
in the sense that it has never formed part of a continent since the 
introduction of its present comparatively meager fauna. 
The strata which form the basement series of Barbados are ex¬ 
tremely contorted, and have been greatly disturbed. They consist 
of silicious sandstones, calcareous sandstones, clays containing sele¬ 
nite, clays impregnated with mineral oils, and, at some points, bitu¬ 
minous coal. Their precise age has not yet been determined, but they 
are probably late Eocene or Miocene, and point to a correlation with 
those of Trinidad, and, consequently; at one period to a connection 
with the South American continent. These strata, over about six 
sevenths of the superficial area of the island, or about ninety-one 
thousand acres,,are covered with a capping of coral rock, while the 
area from which the coral has been denuded by sub-aerial causes, 
and where the basement rocks are exposed, occupies only about 
sixteen thousand acres, locally known as the “ Scotland district ” 
because of its peaked and hilly character. It is in this part of 
the island that the highest altitudes are reached — Mt. Ilillaby, 1104 
feet, Mt. Misery, 1053 feet, and Hackleton’s Cliff, 997 feet, among 
others. The rest of the island is low and rather flat, or at most 
gently rolling, thus offering a great contrast to the Scotland dis¬ 
trict, which is a part of the island that the average tourist never 
sees. It can hardly be doubted that these basement rocks (or Scot¬ 
land series) were formed either as estuarine or shallow sea deposits, 
and in close contiguity with some great land area. Resting uncon- 
formably upon the Scotland series are vast deposits of oceanic ooze, 
built up, in some cases almost entirely, from the tests of rhizopods. 
