BIRDS OF THE BAHAMA ISLANDS. 95 



the slightest effort at song, I took him out to cleanse the feathers 

 of his breast from the dried blood that had flowed from his wound. 

 I gently rubbed them with a soft, wet sponge, but whether he took 

 cold, or whether I irritated the wound, I know not ; but on being 

 returned to the cage, he instantly began to breathe asthmatically 

 with open beak, apparently with pain, interrupted now and then by 

 fits of coughing, w'hich continued all night, and on the next morning 

 he died. On dissection, I could not find that the shot had pene- 

 trated the chest, but they were imbedded in the muscles of the fore- 

 arm, and had broken the scapula. 



" A nest, reported to be of the Cashew Bird, was brought to 

 me on the iSth of June, taken from a pimento-tree. It was a 

 thick, circular mat, slightly concave, of a loose but soft texture, 

 principally composed of cotton, decayed leaves, epidermis of weeds, 

 slender stalks, and tendrils of passion-flower, intermingled, but 

 scarcely interwoven. I think it probable that this had been sus- 

 tained by a firmer framework; and that the person who took it 

 merely tore out the soft lining as a bed on which the eggs might 

 be carried. The child who brought it could give no account of 

 this. The eggs w^ere two, long-oval, taper at the smaller end ; 

 i^^ inch by nearly 1%; white, sparingly dashed with irregular, 

 dusky spots in a rude ring around the larger end. The embryo 

 was at this time formed." 



The Bahama Finch is known to the inhabitants by the name of 

 Banana Bird, and they seem to apply this name indiscriminately to 

 all the smaller fruit-eating birds with which they happen to be unac- 



