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THE. C.IB?R Volume XVII! Julr-Auguet, 1916 Number BREEDING OF TIARIS CANORA, AND OTHER NOTES FROM THE U.S. NAVAL STATION, GUANTANAMO B?Y, CUBA By DR. T. W. RICHARDS, U.S. NAV?r ?:': .: ?, WITH THREE PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR HE COLLECTOR who selects the southeast coast of Cuba for-his first trip to the tropics is apt to find his early impressions somewhat disappointing. Steep hills rise abruptly, from the water's edge, their gray sides seamed and gashed by erosion. Instead of waving palms and luxuriant verdure, such as one pictures in imagination, we find here cacti and thorny shrubs in end- less variety. Upon their branches epiphytes crowd in rank profusion, while trailing vines bind the whole into thickets well-nigh impassable. In short, the terrain is in many places semi-arid and the vegetation distinctly xerophytic. Here and there clumps of palms struggle successfully for existence, but the general tone of the landscape is gray, rather than green, and closer acquaint- ance impresses one with the easy transition from leaves to thorns. First im- pressions, however, are proverbially misleading, and it is only fair to say that our traveller has no real cause for discouragement. In the first place he can probably find all the tropical luxuriance his heart desires by going a few miles inland, while even within the coastal region itself there is much of inter- est to the ornithologist. If I have somewhat emphasized the other aspects it is because there seems to be a rather prevalent impression that all tropical local- ities are much alike, whereas it is quite otherwise in fact, ?nd a collector'is apt . to find plenty of variety without going far afield to look for it. Guantanamo Bay lies on the south coast of Cuba, some 65 miles from Cape Maysi, the eastern extremity of the island. It is a beautiful sheet of water about eleven miles long and perhaps six wide at the most, with a comparatively narrow entrance, in fact one of those "bottle-necked" affairs so common on the Cuban coasts. The shore-line is tortuous and irregular in the extreme, be-