PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE WEST INDIES. 49 



A long-continued process of natural selection has also modified 

 the habits of numerous species of West Indian parrots. Four hun- 

 dred years ago, when Fernan Oviedo superintended the placer mines 

 of Hayti, loris were so abundant and tame that his assistants often 



o BIRD AND NEST. 



amused themselves prowling about a thicket of berry bushes and 

 capturing the chattering visitors by means of a common ring net. 

 Nestlings could be taken from every hollow tree, and often from the 

 thatchwork of deserted Indian cabins; but the overconfident speci- 

 mens came to grief, and the survivors have learned to give the Cau- 

 casian varieties of the Simla destructor a wide berth. They raise 

 their young in the cavities of the tallest forest trees, and approach 

 human habitations only at dawn of day and sometimes during the 

 noonday heat, when Creoles can be relied upon to indulge in a siesta 

 nap. In reliance on their protective colors, gray parrakeets frequent 

 the dead timber of the coffee plantations, while the leaf -green Amazon 

 parrot sticks to leaf trees. 



" When they alight on a dry branch," says Captain Gosse, in his 

 Jamaica chronicle, " their emerald hue is conspicuous and affords a 

 fair mark for the gunner, but in a tree of full foliage their color 

 proves an excellent concealment. They seem aware of this, and their 

 sagacity prompts them to rely on it for protection. Often we hear 

 their voices proceeding from a certain tree, or have marked the de- 

 scent of a flock, but on proceeding to the spot, though the eye has not 

 wandered from it, we can not discover an individual ; we go close to 

 the tree, but all is silent; we institute a careful survey of every part 

 with the eye, to detect the slightest motion, or the form of a bird 

 among the leaves, but in vain, and we begin to think that they have 



