CLARK: LESSER ANTILLEAN BIRDS. 
291 
species in a fresh condition. He says ( loc . cit.) that V. laurae is 
“somewhat similar to Vireo calidris , but is much smaller, and of 
more intense coloration.” I have birds even smaller and brighter 
than that figured as the type of V laurae from the Grenadines and 
St. Vincent. Lawrence’s description of V. calidris var. dominicana 
(Proc. U. S. nat. mus., vol. 1, p. 55, 1878) is essentially the same as 
Nicoll’s of V. laurae. 
After the assumption of the new plumage, the bird begins to get 
lighter and more grayish, and quickly loses the intense olive of the 
back, which becomes olive gray, while the cap loses its bluish cast, 
and tends to approach the grayish color of the back. The birds 
inhabiting the higher and more shaded districts (on Dominica, St. 
Lucia, St. Vincent, Grenada, etc.) never get beyond this stage ; but 
on the more open areas (such as Barbados, the Grenadines, and the 
lowlands of St. Vincent and Grenada), they begin to assume a 
brownish color, which may go so far as to leave the bird a uniform 
dingy brownish gray above (head and back), with almost no yellow 
beneath, entirely different from the colors of fresh specimens. The 
type of V. c. barbadense (vide Ridgway, loc. cit), as well as live 
examples collected by myself on that island, and a number of others 
from the Grenadines are in this condition. This fading begins 
immediately after the moult is complete, and progresses very rapidly 
on Barbados and the Grenadines, less so on the lowlands of 
Grenada and St. Vincent, while on the higher levels of these last- 
named islands it is sometimes scarcely perceptible. Fresh speci¬ 
mens from the islands southward of Guadeloupe are identical in 
color; but two birds from Marie Galante show a tendency to 
approach V. c. ccdidris in having the color of the cap shade into 
the green of the back. 
Hughes, writing in 1750 (1750, p. 73, “The Spanish Lacker”) 
said : “ This bird is most commonly to be seen near Ilackleton’s 
Clift.” At the present day it appears to be a breeding resident in 
this region onty, although specimens are occasionally taken at other 
parts of Barbados. It is not a very common bird, but I found a 
considerable colony of them in Foster Hall woods, where I also 
found the empty nests and saw the young following the parents. 
Were it not for its loud notes the bird would often escape notice. 
It is interesting to note that Schomburgk (’48, p. 681, “ Vireo 
olivacea ”) gives this species the local name of Monkey-bird by 
