6876 Birds. 



extremely coarse that horses will eat only the young leaves and 

 shoots. It grows equally well along the edges of the morass or hill- 

 sides, and once having obtained possession of the soil resists the 

 encroachments of the ' bush.' The patches on the mountain-sides 

 are doubtless Ihe sites of deserted negro-grounds. 



" T may mention, in connexion with this, that on my first arrival in 

 the parish I missed that very familiar bird, Quiscalus crassirostris. 

 I soon found, however, that, though it was wanting in the neighbour- 

 hood in which 1 happened to be, small flocks were to be met with 

 here and there ; but these will bear no comparison, as to number, 

 with those of the western parishes. The Crotophagas appear, on the 

 contrary, to be increased in numbers. 



*' As I observe, tlie diminished numbers of the former bird are 

 usually to be met with about estates actively cultivated : it may possibly 

 be that the tall Guinea-grass which occupies so large a portion of the 

 lowlands does not suit them as foraging-ground, which they can only 

 find in the small area still cultivated. 



" Another of the remarkable features of the district is the prevalence 

 of a palm called by the negroes ' Maccafat' {Cocos fasiformis ?) Its 

 tall stem, swelling upwards club-like, is armed with the most formid- 

 able thorns. It grows with an abundance I never saw elsewhere in 

 Jamaica. It requires care to keep it out of the pastures. There are 

 clumps of it along the river-courses ; it abounds in hill-side thickets. 

 In the same situations Inga vera is abundant, a tree new to me also, 

 whose night-blowing flowers, though faded, are much frequented by 

 humming-birds. I can scarcely omit notice of a splendid Aristolo- 

 chia common in the hedges here, A. grandiflora ? The singular 

 helmet-shaped flowers, of a tawny-orange veined with purple, mea- 

 sure ten inches across, and are furnished with a long tape-like 

 appendage, twenty inches in length, which sways about beneath. A 

 single spray will bear numerous flowers in different stages. 



" One of the points which have attracted my attention the most with 

 regard to the birds of the district, I alluded to in my last letter, viz., 

 the almost constant occurrence of flocks of Acanthylis along the coast, 

 within the sound of the surf. With these I have also often noticed 

 flocks of Hirundo euchrysea, similar to those I observed last year at 

 this season about Mahogany Hill. On my arrival at this estate I was 

 much pleased again to hear, for the first time this winter, the long- 

 drawn notes of the solitaire {Ptdogonys) ; and yet we are here in the 

 alluvial valley of the Wag Water, scarcely more than a mile and 



