94 BIRDS OF THE BAHAMA ISLANDS. 



and small earthworms, but he took no notice of these ; then I gath- 

 ered a few bunches of fiddlewood berries, which I had no sooner 

 stuck into his cage than I was pleased to see him hop towards them 

 and pick off the ripe ones with much relish and discrimination. I 

 was informed, in a wild state, he sometimes eats the sour-sop. As 

 I had none of this fruit at hand, I gave him pieces of a ripe custard- 

 apple and of a guava. He immediately began to eat of each, pluck- 

 ing off portions of the pulp, and also taking up the fleshy ovaria of 

 which the former is composed, which he chewed with his beak till 

 the inclosed seed was pressed out. 



" But all these were forsaken so soon as I presented to him bunches 

 of ripe pimento, black and sweet. These he picked off greedily, 

 masticating each in the beak, until the seeds, which I suppose were 

 too hotly aromatic for his taste, fell out. It was amusing to see the 

 persevering efforts he made to obtain those berries which happened 

 to be a little beyond his reach He would jump from perch to perch 

 impatiently, gazing with outstretched neck at the tempting fruit, then 

 jump and look again ; then reach forward to them, until in the 

 endeavor, he would overbalance himself, and perform an involun- 

 tary somerset. Nothing daunted, however, he persevered until he 

 ventured to do what he had been several times on tiptoe to do, leap 

 on the bunch itself; and this he continued to do, though with 

 some failures, holding on in a scrambling way, now by a leaf, now 

 by the berries themselves, until he had rifled the bunch of the ripest. 

 After I had kept him about a week, during which his liveliness and 

 good temper had much attached him to me, though he made not 



