362 NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



notes change to to-whit-to-icJioo, and sometimes to a soft, simple chirp, wliis- 

 pered so gently as scarcely to be audible. The name of Whip-tom-kelly 

 Mr. Gosse never heard applied to it in Jamaica. Yet it is a bird often heard, 

 and one whose notes liave a similarity to articulate sounds, and naturally 

 suggest a common appellation. It is very vociferous and pertinacious in its 

 calls, repeating tliem with energy every two or three seconds. 



This species, he states, does not ordinarily sit on a prominent twig, or dart 

 out after insects, thougli it has been seen in eager pursuit of a butterfly. It 

 seems to live in the centre of thick woods. It does not pass the winter in 

 Jamaica, but leaves at the beginning of October, returning as early as the 

 20tli of Marcli. Its food he states to be both animal and vegetable, as he 

 found in its stomach the seeds of the tropical plants and berries. In April, 

 Mr. Gosse observed it hunting insects by the borders of the Bluefields Elver, 

 and so intent upon its occupation as to allow of a very near approach. It 

 sought insects among the grass and low herbage, percliing on the stalks of 

 weeds, and darting out after both vagrant and stationary prey. They incu- 

 bate in June and July. 



Like all this genus the Long-bilk'd Vircio builds a pensile nest of great 

 arcliitectural ingenuity and beauty. It is a deep cup, usually about two 

 thirds of a sphere in shape, truncated at the toj). The materials of wliicli 

 it is made are often somewhat coarse. Mr. Gosse describes it as about as 

 large as an ordinary teacup, narrowed at the mouth, composed of dry grasses, 

 silk, cotton, lichens, and spiders'-web. It is usually suspended from the fork 

 of two twigs, the mai'gin very neatly overwoven to embrace them. The 

 materials are well interwoven, and tlie walls firm and close, though not very 

 thick. The whole is smoothly lined with slender vegetable fibres resembling 

 human liair. One nest had its cavity nearly filled with a mass of white cot- 

 ton, interwoven with the other materials, which, being picked cotton, had 

 evidently been taken from some yard or building. 



The eggs of this species are three in number, of a lirilliant wliite, deli- 

 cately tinted with pink, and marked with a few line red and red-brown 

 spots, usually about the larger end. 



An egg of tlio variety from Cuba is of an oldong-oval shape, slightly 

 pointed at one end, and tlie markings of fiiint ]iurple and of dark ])urplish- 

 brown, in bold dashes, are all about the larger end. Another from the same 

 locality is more distinctly rounded at one and pointed at the other end, ami 

 is marked with fine brown dots (bstril)uted over the whole egg. These eggs 

 measure, one .82.5 by .55 of an inch, and the other .78 by .55. An egg from 

 Jamaica is of an extremely oblong-oval, measuring .88 by .55 of an inch, and 

 is l)oldly marked more or less over the entire egg with large blotches of pur- 

 plish-brown. 



The Messrs. Newton describe the nest of the mlidrin of St. ( "roi.x as a beau- 

 tiful structure, sliaped like an inverted cone, composed outwardly of dried 

 blades of grass, dried leaves, and wool, woven round the twigs, to wliich it 



