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Show 552 DR. o. F I N S C H O N T H E BIRDS O F T R I N I D A D . [June 23, on a hoop tied with a string to one of their legs. When brought on hoard they were fed with boiled rice and table-raisins, and throve exceedinglv on their new food. While we remained in the Tropics the birds were in good health, but when we got into colder latitudes began to fail. When we arrived in Sydney two were presented to the Zoological Collection iu the Botanic Gardens, but died in about a week's time. So far as I can remember, our own all died at last and were taken to London in skins when the ' Curacoa' returned to Portsmouth. There has been a specimen of the same bird in the Sydney Museum for years; but no name nor locality was attaehed until this last month or so. 3. O n a Collection of Birds from the Island of Trinidad. B y Dr. O T T O F I N S C H , C.M.Z.S. Mr. Kohlmann, a schoolmaster of Vegesack, has kindly placed in my hands for determination a collection of birds from the Island of Trinidad, brought home by a captain of a vessel belonging to this small port on the Weser. Though birds of this well-explored island* are rather common in collections, the first account of its rich avifauna did not appear before 1864, when Mr. E. C. Taylor (Ibis, pp. 73-97) published his interesting article (Five Months in the West Indies. Part I. Trinidad and Venezuela), enumerating 141 species, chiefly belonging to the Island of Trinidad. Two years later we got a work specially devoted to the birds of this island from the pen of Dr. A. Leotaud f, a French ornithologist, whose praiseworthy zeal and intelligence manifested signs of still greater progress, but who, unfortunately, died scarcely one year later (vide Ibis, 1867, p. 256). From my acquaintance with this work, which was "public par sousciiption nationale," I am enabled to say that it is one of the best of its sort ever published in a country where the sources of science are more than usually meagre, and where especially bibliographical material is by no means near at hand. Nobody, therefore, will feel inclined to criticise the author for being here and there mistaken in the correct appellation of the species, and still less since the descriptive portion of the work and the accurate measurements prove him to have been throughout an excellent practical observer. Dr. Sclater has already corrected some of the errors in his valuable remarks on Dr. Leotaud's book (Ibis, 1867, pp. 104-108) ; and in the course of the following pages I shall be able to add some further corrections. The results of m y endeavours will be, I believe, of * A brief sketch of its avifauna has been given already by Dr. Hartlaub; Uber den heutigen Zustand unserer Kenntniss von Westindiens Ornithologie (Isis, 1847, p. 614). t Oiseaux de l'ile de la Trinidad (Antilles); par A. Leotaud, Docteur en Medecine de la Faculte de Paris, Membre Correspondant de la Society de Me-decine de Gant. Port d'Espagne: Chronicle Publishing Office, 18C6. |