Book Description

Excerpt from Aborigines of the West Indies A neglected field of scientific research, yet lying adjacent to and between the two great continents of America, is that comprising the vast collection of islands known as the West Indies. Although containing the first islands discovered by Columbus, and including the seas first traversed by Spanish ships, in the New World, it was many years before the actual condition and population of those islands was made known to the civilized world. Even' now, less, per haps, is known respecting them than of many portions of lands considered as unexplored. N 0 longer ago than 1878, I had the pleasure of discovering some twenty species of birds, which had until that time rested in obscurity, unknown and undescribed, and of sending to the Unit d States the first collection of aboriginal implements used by the Caribs of the Lesser Antilles. The West Indies are divided, as is well known, into the Greater and Lesser Antilles, the former comprising the islands of Cuba, Jamaica, Santo Domingo or Haiti, and Puerto Rico, to which we may add the Ms the latter, that crescent-shaped archipelago called the Caribbean Chain, connecting the larger islands with the continent of South America. These, again, are locally divided into Windward and Leeward, with reference to their situation respecting the prevailing trade-winds. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.