140 BLUEFIELDS RIDGE. 



at different distances, and at considerable intervals ; 

 the effect of which, so unlike the ordinary voice of a 

 bird, is startling until you are acquainted vi^ith the 

 performers, and always charming when you are. You 

 listen with the more interest, because the bird itself 

 is very shy, and consequently very seldom seen ; 

 ordinarily keeping with jealous suspicion in the most 

 dense and sombre parts of these mountain woods. 



But there is one bird which is very abundant here. 

 As the Ferns are eminently characteristic of the 

 botany of this lofty elevation, so is the lovely Long- 

 tailed Humming-bird {Trochilus polytmus) of its 

 ornithology. The velvet crest, and emerald gorget, 

 and long streaming tail-plumes of this lustrous living 

 gem, flit, and flutter, and hover about this shady 

 lane all day long, and all the year round ; but it is 

 especially numerous in the spring, when scores, and 

 even hundreds, may be seen rifling the perpetually- 

 blossoming shrubs that are its denizens. To sit on a 

 fallen log in the cool shadow, surrounded by beauty 

 and fragrance, listening to the broken hymns of the 

 Solitaires, and watching the Humming-birds that sip 

 fearlessly around your head, and ever and anon come 

 and peep close under the brim of youijt broad Panama 

 hat, — as if to say, " Who are you that come intruding 

 into our peculiar domain ? " — this is delightful. 

 There is nothing to mar the charm of the situation ; 

 no wild beasts in the forest behind glaring at you, 

 and ready to make their fatal spring ; no deadly 

 reptiles coiled beneath your seat, or swinging from 

 the branches of the neighbouring trees ; for Jamaica 

 possesses, as far as I know, neither the one nor the 



