NATURAL SCIENCES OP PHILADELPHIA. 299 



certainly at a loss to account for the object of the operation, until afterwards, 

 in preparing some specimens, I discovered that he is much infested with bird- 

 lice ; his object, evidently, was to rid himself of this nuisance, A roasted 

 lime is used in rubbing domestic poultry for the same purpose. The Grakle 

 is very destructive to the crops of oranges, by puncturing with and inserting 

 the beak in the ripening fruit once or twice, and the fruit so punctured, soon 

 after falls. 



There is to be found in St. Ann and St. Mary a small Grakle with the 

 habits of the preceding. 



59. Icterus lectcopteryx. There is a variety of the Banana bird, known as 

 the yellow tail, in contradistinction to the common kind or black tail,* a little 

 duller in plumage, the yellow tail and dark ground color of the eggs constitu- 

 ting the only differences I can find to distinguish them. The latter, or black 

 tail, is found abundant everywhere, the former only in certain localities, but 

 when they meet they appear quite familiar, and the two often mate, and I 

 have sometimes found one or two black feathers in the yellow tail. There is 

 no difference in the materials or construction of the nests, both building with 

 similar materials, black or white horse hair or fibre, or both intermixed ; the 

 fibres generally used are those of the roots of the trailing Cerei or the fibre of 

 different species of Cerecis. The nest is a small sack or purse 3 or 4 inches 

 across and about the same depth, depending from a fork, or two approximate 

 branches, and usually contains 3 or 4, rarely 5 oval or long oval eggs. 

 These are more or less taperiDg at one end and variable in size ; of those 

 taken from one nest, one measures 1 inch by 6-8ths and another | by f of 

 an inch ; those of the black tail are creamy or clayish-white, and those of the 

 yellow tail dark cream color or light drab, both marbled at the large end with 

 irregular spots and lines of dark sepia or umber-brown, and cloudings of pale 

 burnt umber and bluish-grey ; sometimes a few spots and dashes are 

 sparely scattered below. 



62. Doltchonyx oryzivorus. The Butter bird is an annual visitor. They 

 come in large flocks and are very regular in their arrival in October, then 

 being in winter plumage. After a few days resting in the commons and 

 Guinea Grass fields, then in seed, they proceed on their southward route. 

 They appear again in Spring on their return northward, but in smaller flocks, 

 and the male is then in Summer plumage. The Butter bird is often caged as 

 a song bird, but never survives the second winter of confinement. 



Nesopsar nigerrimus. (Sclater, Ibis, 1859, 456.) The Black Banana bird, 

 is not, I am informed, uncommon in the highlands, but I have never, to my 

 recollection, met with a specimen of it. Some years back a black bird 

 sporting in a tree near New Castle, in the Port Royal Mountains, was shown 

 to me as this species, but I had no gun. The nest is described as of a struc- 

 ture like that of the Icterus but smaller, and the eggs also smaller with simi- 

 lar markings. 



60. . I have often met in St. Ann with another small 



black bird, known there as the black sparrow ; it is apparently Icterine. I 

 obtained, many years ago, some specimens of this, but they were destroyed 

 by Dermestes. It may be the Black Banana bird. 



CORVID^E. 



Cyanocorax pileatus. I have never heard of any other individual of this 

 species found here, except the one mentioned by Mr. Gosse, and that was 

 probably a caged bird escaped from confinement. 



* These appear to be merely different ages of the same species', requiring two years to attain 

 the mature male plumage, as in the case of Icterus spurius. (S. F. B.; 



1863.] 



