Birds of Montserrat. 487 



8. LoxiGiLLA NOCTis. Black Sparrow. 



The remarks which I have made on Certhiola dominicana 

 apply also to this species^ with the exception that it appeared 

 to be a little shyer than the Certhiola. 



4. Icterus oberi. (Plate XIII.) 



Icterus oberi, Lawr. Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus. vol. iii. p. 351 

 (1880). 



This species is the rara avis of my small collection from 

 Montserrat ; and I may therefore perhaps be excused for en- 

 tering a little into details respecting it. 



Mr. Ober, on behalf of the Smithsonian Institution of 

 Washington, had paid a brief visit to Montserrat two or three 

 months before I arrived there, and in company with the Rev. 

 R. H. Holme, the Rector, had ascended Chances Mountain, 

 the highest peak in the island, in search of an " Oriole " wliich 

 he expected to find there ; the search, however, proved un- 

 successful. On my making the acquaintance of the Rector, 

 who was devoting himself to the study of the ferns, of which 

 he has collected 109 species in Montserrat, he proposed to 

 me that we should make another ascent up the mountain, in 

 the hope that we might be more successful than he and Mr. 

 Ober had been ; and this we did, accompanied by two of the 

 Rector's pupils and a Negro guide, on the 19th February. 



It would be out of place for me to repeat in the pages of 

 ' The Ibis ' the vain attempt which has so frequently been 

 made to describe the luxuriant vegetation and the picturesque 

 scenery which unfolds itself in the course of an ascent of a 

 tropical mountain. 



I shall therefore omit all detail as to this and as to the 

 " uncanny '' and " bottomless '' pond near the summit of the 

 mountain, 3000 feot high (in which we ventured to bathe, to 

 the horror of our so-called guide), and confine myself as 

 closely as possible to recording the circumstances under 

 which we secured our two specimens of tlie Montserrat 

 Icterus. About 1500 or 2000 feet up the moiintain, where 

 the luxuriant vegetation through which we had cut our way 

 was beginning to be replaced by the colder and more severe 

 aspect of the mountain-palms, festooned with grasses and 

 filmy ferns, and the atmosphere was becoming unpleasantly 



2l 2 



