SINGING-BIRDS. 169 



{Progne Dominic ensis), too, sit side by side in close 

 rows on the dead frond of some tall palm, or on the 



wound beneath some cliffy hills, and were surprised to discover that it 

 came from the common red-gorged Martin. Since that, — in Spanish- 

 town, — on the trees about the government buildings, I have observed 

 him constantly, at this time of the year, after careering about, perch- 

 ing and pouring out a loud ecstatic song, quite different in tone and 

 manner from his ordinary lowly twitter. His music arrests just as 

 much attention as a solo from the Mocking-bird does in such a place. 

 The singing is full of stammering cadences, continued and repeated 

 with vehemence. When one bird has poured out his fit, another 

 quits the wins, and perching near by, delivers himself of a similar 

 strain of ecstasy. They sing but one at a time, the company on the 

 tree-top being only listeners. These vehement bursts of song continue 

 only during the tumultuous rains in the latter months of the year. 

 When these are over the rhapsodial frenzy ceases, or only very 

 casually occurs. After the weather is again tranquil, and the at- 

 mosphere assumes that unrivalled purity, which prevails during our 

 winter, and the air is cool, and the sky and the earth fresh and 

 beautiful, — the Martin is observed to resume his usual gentle habit; 

 and to twitter again his lowly muttered song in his customary galleries 

 and sheds." — Letter from Mr. Hill, 20tli Nov. 1846. 



" On occasional mornings, lately, I have heard the House Martin, 

 but only a single bird at a time, singing that loud peculiar vehement 

 song, with some fine clear musical tones in it, which I had described 

 as the rhapsodial humour of Autumn. The seasonal outburst just 

 now is, however, not so long sustained as that of Autumn. The 

 ecstasy is less absorbing, and there are no congregated listeners on the 

 tree-top, but the singer sits as he did when lie sang to the October 

 rains on the uppermost and outermost dry limb, and delivers himself 

 of his vehement soul of melody ; and then he takes to the wing, and 

 making three or four circles, scuds under the eaves of the neighbour 

 building, to join the lodgers and loiterers within doors." — Ibid. 

 Feb. 20th, 1847. 



In these communications, my friend has since informed me that he 

 has confounded the Cave Swallow with the Blue Progne. Both 

 species inhabit the public buildings in Spanish Town, the former ex- 

 clusively tenanting the lower, the latter the upper story, neither species 

 intrudinj' on the domain of the other. 



