66 PASSERES. HIRUNDINID^. 



eggs ; in some others the callow young, and in one 

 two full fledged birds, which lay quietly in the nest, 

 side by side, while their black eyes watched my 

 motions. The parent birds flew about in affright, 

 occasionally coming close up to the nests, and 

 hovering as if about to alight, but scarcely one 

 ventured in. The eggs measure about ^ inch 

 long, and i-J- wide ; they are white, studded with dots 

 and spots of dull red ; but in many eggs which I 

 have examined there is much variation in size, form, 

 and colour. The young birds scarcely differed from 

 the adult. 



In May, my kind friend Mr. Aaron Deleon, took 

 me to a curious cavern, situated on the estate called 

 Amity, some few miles from Savannah le Mar, but 

 inland. Through its dark recesses a subterraneous 

 river flows, so still and so perfectly transparent, that 

 although two or three feet deep, I did not perceive 

 that there was a drop of water there, but took the 

 atoms floating on its surface, to be lodged in in- 

 visible spiders' webs, stretched across. Numerous 

 Swallows were flying in and out, and the roof was 

 studded with nests similar to those above described. 



Though this little Swallow manifests a decided 

 predilection for cavernous recesses, it does not con- 

 fine itself to situations so recluse. In that part of 

 the " King's House," at Spanish town, which is 

 called the Arcade, where clerks are writing, and 

 public business is transacted every day, great num- 

 bers of these nests are affixed to the beams and 

 joists, and the birds are continually flying to and 

 fro. Before the year 1838, they had built in the 



