tere 



380 TRINIDAD. 



In the woods, curiosity alone will impel one to ascertain the 

 cause of a singular noise, which can be ascribed to a bird only 

 on sight ; it is made by the casse-noisette , or nut-cracker (Pipra 

 gutturalis). These small manikins, crowded on a shrub, are 

 continually on leap from the branches to the ground, and from 

 the ground to the branches. During these short passages of a 

 few feet they emit the noise, which is a short and sharp rolling 

 produced with the aid of their bills. So great an uproar on the 

 part of such small birds is not easily understood, and less so their 

 end in producing it ; for the ordinary note or call uttered by 

 them under all other circumstances has in it nothing particular. 

 At those periods, when joy alone seems to move them, they 

 remove from the ground everything which lies on it, so as to 

 make a perfect clearance of a small spot, which is always circular. 

 This is again an enigma ; and yet this manoeuvre they will co 

 tinue for hours entire. 



There is a bird, the song of which announces man's dwelli 

 viz., the Troglodytes euclon, which is a wren, but is called he: 

 rossignol. Though no rival of the European night songster, yet 

 it is the only one among our birds that may induce one to think 

 there must be a charm in listening to a bird pouring forth the 

 harmony of its notes. However, it is respected much less for 

 its melody than for its habits, which attach it to our dwellings : 

 a sort of veneration is even felt for the little creature, which is 

 shown by its very popular name, for it is called " Oiseau du Bon- 

 Dieu/' or God's bird. Several nocturnal birds of prey disturb 

 the stillness of night by their shrieks, and in those shrieks there 

 is here, as everywhere else, something so dismally lugubrious, as 

 to cause the unfortunate to shudder in his hut ; for, to him they 

 are ominous of death. But it is rather curious that a diurnal 

 bird, the trinite (Cuculus naevius), sometimes makes its cry to 

 be heard during the night : whilst its companions of the day are 

 in deep repose, it wakes on the branch, and each hour gives forth 

 its notes, which night renders querulous, but which in turn make 

 night more mournful still. 



Some other particulars may be remarked in the call of our 

 birds ; but as a characteristic of this point of Ornithology, they 

 may be said to whistle rather than sing, whilst some of them 

 produce with their bill singular noises. Thus our cassique, 

 rapidly moving its bill along the quills of its wing-feathers, p: 



