JABBERING CROW. ^11 



time is spent in visiting successively the summits of 

 those trees that tower above the rest of the forest, 

 the Santa-Maria, the bread-nut, the broad-leaf, and 

 the cotton-tree. As these visitations are often per- 

 formed alone, I imagine that the gabbling cries are 

 calls to their companions, especially as, if another 

 comes within hearing, he is pretty sure to visit his 

 clamorous brother, and enter into noisy conversa- 

 tion with him. After spending a few minutes on 

 one tree, during which they do not, generally ^ change 

 their position, otherwise than by walking delibe- 

 rately along the branch, they both wing their way to 

 the next station, not side by side, but one a little 

 behind the other, both calling as they go. The 

 bleached and bare limbs of a dry tree are always 

 selected, when one of the requisite elevation is within 

 range, as affording most fully that which they seem 

 to delight in, an unobstructed prospect. Sometimes 

 they do alight on lower trees, but then they are 

 very wary and suspicious, so that it is a difficult 

 matter to get within shot of one. When out of gun 

 range, which they seem to estimate pretty accurately, 

 they are much more careless of a passing stranger. 

 Their flight is heavy and slow. They scarcely ever 

 desert the solitudes of the mountains ; two thousand 

 feet is the lowest limit at which I have known them, 

 with two exceptions. The one is that in certain 

 lofty woods surrounding the extensive morass in 

 Saltspring Pen, near Black river, I have heard the 

 voices of these birds clamorously uttered, in the 

 latter part of November. The other instance oc- 

 curred behind Pedro Bluif, but little above the 

 level of the sea, where I heard this bird in June. 



