Quadrupeds — Birds. 68 73 



Note on the partialitrj of the Coati-Mundi for Tobacco. — A gentleinan, formerly 

 resident in Deraerara, informed me that a tame coali-raundi which he possessed 

 whilst there would eagerly seize the end of a cigar when ofifered to him, and, 

 unrolling the leaves, would diligently and vigorously rub his tail with ihem, 

 heginning at the root of the tail and subjecting the whole of that organ to this 

 singular process. In consequence of this information I tried the experiment on a 

 coati-mundi which I have in confinement, and which, to my surprise, immediately 

 went through precisely the same performance which my informant had observed in 

 his Demerara individual, both with portions of cigar and also with tobacco in the 

 form in which it is sold for use in the tobacco-pipe. From the account given to me 

 of the tobacco-loving coati-mundi which my friend possessed in Demerara I am disr 

 posed to think that was an individual belonging to a different species from that in ray 

 possession, and if so the coincidence of habit in this curious particular between the 

 two animals is perhaps the more singular on that account. — /. H. Gurney ; Cation 

 Hall, Norwich; February 3, 1860. 



Notes on the Mountain Birds of Jama ica. 

 By W. OsBDRN, Esq.* 



" Agualta Vale, Metcalfe, Jamaica, 

 January 4, 1860. 



" My dear Sir, — It will, I think, serve in some degree to illustrate 

 the remarks I have to make on the birds which frequent this north- 

 eastern sea-bord, if I first note some of the many features which 

 distinguish the district from those I have previously visited. 



" In travelling eastward along the sea-side road through St. Mary's, 

 just after passing the little group of negro-huts and wooden houses 

 called Ora Cabessa, the road zigzags to the summit of a lofty pro- 

 montory called the Crab Woods. It proves to be perfectly flat for a 

 couple of miles, very dry, and, being exposed to the full fury of the 

 sea breeze, barren all but a scanty crop of fan-thatch palms and the 

 hardy stunted shrubs peculiar to such situations. These, shaped by 

 the prevailing direction of the wind like a clipped hedge, keep off the 

 breeze, but afford no shade. But on arriving at the eastward edge of 

 this table-land, even a mid-day ride across is repaid by the magnificent 

 view its elevation gives of the raoimtains of Metcalfe and St. George : 

 they rise in detached and separate peaks, round which the sea breeze, 

 however fine the day, scarcely fails to roll some fleecy clouds, and 

 therefore differ equally from the successive ridges of the tertiary 

 limestone and the * crumpled-paper' appearance of the porphyritic 



* Communicated by P. H. Gosse, Esq., F.R.S. . 

 XVIII. M 



