148 Messrs. A. and E. Newton's Ohservations 



t 22. Ani. Cro/ojt>%a«m, L.; BujBT. Pl.Enl. 102. "Black 

 Witch." 



Very common, and, from its familiar habits and grotesque ap- 

 pearance, universally known. Its manners have so often been 

 described, that there remains little to be said of them. It lives in 

 companies, and is delightfully noisy. It shares, as before men- 

 tioned, with Tinnunculus sparverius and Butorides virescens, the 

 privilege of being the favourite object of the attacks of the 

 Chicheree {Tyramius dominicensis, Bp.) ; and it is hard to say 

 whether this bird or the one last mentioned affords most amuse- 

 ment. If there is a fresh breeze, a flight after a Orotophaga is 

 perhaps the best; for, with its long tail and short wings, it gets 

 carried away helplessly. It loses its presence of mind, and tries 

 perhaps to fly up wind, when " letting drive " would answer by 

 far the best ; down then comes the Tyrant, and, after one or two 

 stoops, hits it such a blow as to send it anyhow into whatever 

 shelter presents itself, whether an unpleasant-looking hedge of 

 thorns, or a softer bed of Guinea-grass. In consequence of these 

 encounters, it is, that the Ani's plumage, and especially its tail, 

 suffers very much ; indeed, one can scarcely meet with a speci- 

 men that has its final appendage at all in good order. There is 

 an absurd notion prevalent in the island, that these birds are 

 exempt from the common lot of creation, and that the name 

 " Black Witch " has something to do with their supposed immor- 

 tality; but it was more probably originally intended to express the 

 bird's ordinary call-note, which, as Mr. Hill rightly says (Gosse, 

 B. Jam. p. 289), sounds like the word " que-yuch." 



" On JunelSth, 1857, 1 was shown a nest of this species. As 

 I walked up to the tree (a pretty large Tamarind), I saw two birds 

 sitting close to what I afterwards found to be the position of the 

 nest, which was placed touching the trunk, supported by some 

 young boughs that had apparently sprouted out within the last 

 few years, and was about five feet from the ground. It was a 

 rude collection of sticks and twigs, large and deep, but partly 

 filled with dead leaves, among which I discovered fourteen eggs ; 

 and round the margin were stuck upright a few dead twigs of 

 Tamai'ind. On the 23rd I again went to this nest, and took out 

 two of the nine eggs I then found ; but on the 26th there were 



