SOLITAIRE. i201 



ing a similar bird in the smaller West Indian islands. 

 * The precipitous sides of the SoufFriere mountain 

 in St. Vincent/ says a writer describing the volcano 

 which so disastrously broke out there in 1812, ' were 

 fringed with various evergreens, and aromatic shrubs, 

 flowers, and many Alpine plants. On the north 

 and south sides of the base of the cone were two 

 pieces of water, one perfectly pure and tasteless, 

 the other strongly impregnated with sulphur and 

 alum. This lonely and beautiful spot was rendered 

 more enchanting by the singularly melodious notes 

 of a bird, an inhabitant of those upper solitudes, 

 and altogether unknown to the other parts of the 

 island; hence supposed to be invisible, though it 

 certainly has been seen, and is a species of merle.' 

 I extract my notes on the Haytian bird : though 

 I have seen Jamaica specimens, I never visited 

 their mountain haunts. *As soon as the first in- 

 dications of day-light are perceived, even while the 

 mists hang over the forests, these minstrels are 

 heard pouring forth their wild notes in a concert 

 of many voices, sweet and lengthened like those 

 of the harmonica or musical glasses. It is the 

 sweetest, the most solemn, and most unearthly of 

 all the woodland singing I have ever heard. The 

 lofty locality, the cloud-capt heights, to which alone 

 the eagle soars in other countries, — so different 

 from ordinary singing-birds in gardens and cul- 

 tivated fields, — combine with the solemnity of the 

 music to excite something like devotional asso- 

 ciations. The notes are uttered slowly and dis- 

 tinctly, with a strangely-measured exactness. Though 



