of which is an old fort, with some great guns, which tradition ascribes to the old Spanish 

 settlers, hut now dismantled, and within and without overrun with spiny pinguins and 

 logwood bushes, and tangled with creepers. I have no doubt that this was the site of 

 the Spanish town Oristana, some remains of the houses of which may yet be seen in the 

 provision-ground of a negro peasant adjoining. The foot of the cliff is girt with 

 irregular masses of honey-combed rock, between which the incoming tide rolls, and frets, 

 and boils, in foaming confusion ; and the front is hollowed into caves, some of which 

 are long passages with an opening at each end, and others are merely wide-mouthed, but 

 shallow hollows. In one of these I counted forty nests of this species of Swallow, each 

 consisting of a half-cup, built with little pellets of mud, retaining, in so damp a situa- 

 tion, and where the rock itself is covered, a slimy mouldiness — their original humidity. 

 Each was thickly lined with silk-cotton. If we imagine a pint basin divided perpendi- 

 cularly through the middle, and the one half stuck against a wall, we shall perceive 

 the form of these nests ; some, however, were both larger and deeper than this. In 

 many instances advantage was taken of a slight hollow in the rock, which increased the 

 capacity. In one (it was about the middle of July) I found three eggs ; in some others 

 the callow young, and in one two full-fledged birds, which lay quietly in the nest, side 

 by side, while their black eyes watched my motions. The parent birds flew about in 

 affright, occasionally coming close up to the nests, and hovering as if about to alight, 

 but scarcely one ventured in. The eggs measure about yq inch long, and |^ wide ; they 

 are white, studded with dots and spots of dull red ; but in many eggs which I have 

 examined there is much variation in size, form, and colour. The young birds scarcely 

 differed from the adult. 



" In May, my kind friend Mr. Deleon took me into a curious cavern, situated 

 on the estate called Amity, some few miles from Savannah le Mar, but inland. Through 

 its dark recesses a subterranean river flows, so still and so perfectly transparent, that 

 although two or three feet deep, I did not perceive there was a drop of water there, but 

 took the atoms floating on its surface to be lodged in invisible spiders' webs, stretched 

 across. Numerous Swallows were flying in and out, and the roof was studded with 

 nests similar to those above described. 



" Though this little Swallow manifests a decided predilection for cavernous recesses, 

 it does not confine itself to situations so recluse. In that part of the ' King's House,' at 

 Spanish Town, which is called the Arcade, where clerks are writing, and public business 

 is transacted every day, great numbers of these nests are affixed to the beams and joists, 

 and the birds are continually flying to and fro. Before the year 1838 they had built 

 in the Secretary's office from time immemorial; but it was not in consequence of any 

 molestation there, that in the Year of Freedom they chose the viceregal abode. Did 

 they then recognise the administrator of England's power as the friend of Jamaica? In 

 December, January, and February, the birds, though they fly in and out of the august 

 abode without reserve, as if to maintain their right of way, do not make use of the 

 nests ; but all the rest of the year, these mud habitations are occupied. In March the 



