Birds 163 



under side of one of the royal palm leaves, and three 

 little white eggs were laid in it. A larger, blackish- 

 brown swift was seen, but its nest was not discovered. 

 The common martin, with habits like those of the 

 purple martin, was steel-blue above and pure-white 

 below. 



The palm chat, or palm sparrow, was eight inches 

 in length, dark-brown and olive above, and yellow- 

 ish-white beneath. It lived in colonies in royal 

 palms, making large nests of big sticks, and ate 

 fruits and insects. It was a very noisy bird; the 

 whole colony would start and stop singing at the 

 same time, as if by signal. 



The honey creepers were small, active, and bright- 

 colored. The banana quit caught insects in flowers 

 as the hummingbirds did, and it was very fond of 

 cactus fruits. The grackles were much like our 

 crow blackbirds, and the two kinds ot red-wing 

 blackbirds difl'ered from ours only slightly in color. 

 The flicker differed in having a white rump thickly 

 spotted with black. Chuck-will's widow, which 

 ranges northward to southern Virginia, resembled 

 the whippoorwill in habit but had a different call. 



There were numerous pigeons and doves, many ot 

 them feeding on the ground in flocks. The scaled 

 pigeon was an excellent game bird, although hard 



