io6 HISTORY OF THE [BOOK. i. 



Each creek and bay 



With fry innumerable swarm, and shoals 



Of fish glide under the green wave. > 



Part single, or with mate, 



Graze the sea- weed their pasture; and thro' groves 

 Of coral stray, or sporting with quick glance, 

 Show to the sun their wav'd coats dropt with gold. 



While the woods and the marshes equally abound with 

 wild fowl of infinite variety, and exquisite flavour. |[ 

 But of the tribes which these islands still abundantly 

 furnish, and from Xvhose nature and properties there 

 is no reason to apprehend an extinction of the race, 

 it is not within my province to treat. The enumera- 

 tion that I have made has chiefly extended to such, as 



|| The most delicious bird in the West Indies is the Ortalan, or 

 ber-bird. It is the emberiza oryzwora of Linnaeus, or rice-bird of 

 South Carolina} of which a description is given by Catesby. Yet it is 

 remarkable, that they are reckoned birds of passage in North America as 

 well as in the West Indies. Catesby observes, that they arrive in Caro- 

 lina in infinite numbers in the month of September, to devour the rice : 

 they continue there about three weeks, and retire when the rice begins to 

 grow hard. He supposes their route to be from Cuba to Carolina j but 

 I believe they are not in the islands till the months of October. At least 

 it is in that month that they visit Jamaica in prodigious flights, to feed on 

 the seeds of the Guinea grass. According to Catesby, the bens only ar- 

 rive in Carolina in September. The hen is about the bigness of a lark, 

 and coloured not unlike it in the back j the breast and belly pale yellow, 

 the bill strong and sharp pointed, and shaped like most others of the gra- 

 nivorous kind. The cock's bill is lead colour, the fore part of the head 

 black, the hinder part and the neck of a reddish yellow, the upper part of the 

 wjng white, the back next the head black j lower down grey, the rump white, 

 the greatest part of the wing and the whole tail black; the legs and feet 

 brown in both sexes. Vide the Yelh<v Fly-catcher of Edwards, p. 5. 



