69 
September 14, 1841. 
Prof. Owen, Vice-President, in the Chair. 
A letter was read from William Ogilby, Esq., H.B.M. Consulate, 
Charleston, announcing a present from that gentleman of seven living 
Water-Tortoises for the Society’s Menagerie. 
A letter from R. Hill, Esq. was next read. In this letter, which 
is dated Spanish Town, Jamaica, July 28, 1841, Mr. Hill relates 
some interesting facts respecting the nests of the birds of Jamaica. 
«« Naturalists have remarked,” observes Mr. Hill, ‘‘ that in tropical 
countries there are a greater number of birds that build close nests 
than in the temperate climate of Europe. In the West Indian islands, 
with the exception of the Pigeon tribes and the Humming-birds, the - 
nests are almost uniformly circular coverings of dried grass, varied 
by intermingled cotton, moss, and feathers, with an opening from 
below, or an entrance at the side. The Banana-bird weaves a 
hammock of fibres, sometimes of horse-hair, deep and purse-like, and 
loosely netted; the Muscicapa olivacea a hanging cot of withered 
leaves, straw, moss, fibrous threads, and spiders’ webs, fitted together, 
and the Mocking-bird builds in the midst of a mass of wicker-work 
a neat nest of straw, lined with hair. The Woodpecker and the 
Parrots take to hollow trees, but I hardly know an arboreal bird be- 
side that constructs any nest that is not wholly covered or domed 
over. Very many insects that are exposed to the air during their 
metamorphoses weave coverings of silk and cotton, in which they lie 
shrouded, at once impenetrable to moisture, and uninfluenced by the 
disturbances of the atmosphere. It would seem that the object, 
whatever it be, is the same in both. It is not for warmth that the 
insects spin these webs, for they form their coverings of silk and 
cotton in the hottest period of the year; and I find, that whilst all 
our birds that build open nests breed early, those that construct 
the domed and spherical ones, nestle in the season between the spring 
and autumnal rains, when the air is saturated with electricity, and is 
in a state of constant change. 
«The destructive influence exercised by the active electricity of 
the atmosphere on the eggs of birds, accords with that organic gra- 
dation by which the higher embryonic animals commence vegetative 
life with an organization similar to that of the lower. The success- 
ive stages of development presented by the egg during incubation 
exhibit the heart and great vessels constructed like those of the Ba- 
trachian reptile, with reference to a bronchial circulation. In the 
descending scale of organization, in animals, where the respiration 
is low and the irritability high, the electric stimulus is rapidly fatal. 
Fish and Crustacea perish in numbers under the influence of a thun- 
der-storm (Dr. Marshal Hall on Inritability, Cyclop. Anat, and Phys.), 
No. CIV.—Procrepines or tHE Zoou. Soc. 
