1810 Birds. 



which had been mortally wounded, and had run squealing and trailing his blood 

 through the grass, had not gone far before it fell in the agonies of death. At the mo- 

 ment the animal was perceived to be unable to rise, three vultures, at the same instant, 

 descended upon it, attracted no doubt by the cries of the dying pig, and by the scent 

 of its reeking blood, and while it was yet struggling for life, began to tear open its 

 wounds, and devour it." — p. 2. 



The Potoo (Nyctibius jamaicensis). — " The statement of Cuvier, that ' the propor- 

 tions of the Nyctibius completely disqualify it from rising from a level surface,' I saw 

 disproved ; for notwithstanding the shortness of the tarsi, (and it is, indeed, extreme), 

 my bird repeatedly alighted on, and rose from, the floor, without effort. When rest- 

 ing on the floor, the wings were usually spread ; when perching, they about reached 

 the tip of the tail. If I may judge of the habits of the potoo from what little I have 

 observed of it when at liberty, and from the manners of my captive specimen, I pre- 

 sume that, notwithstanding the powerful wings, it flies but little ; but that, sitting on 

 some post of observation, it watches there till some crepuscular beetle wings by, on 

 which it sallies out, and having captured it with its cavernous and viscid mouth, re- 

 turns immediately to its station. Mr. Swainson appears to consider that the stiff 

 bristles, with which many Caprimulgidce are armed, have a manifest relation to the 

 size and power of their prey, beetles and large moths, while these appendages are not 

 needed in the swallows, their prey consisting of ' little soft insects.' — (Class Birds). 

 But here is a species whose prey is the hardest and most rigid beetles, of large size, 

 and often set with formidable horns, which has no true rictal bristles at all ! " — 

 p. 45. 



" White's conjecture of the purpose to which the serrated toe of the nightjar is ap- 

 plied, namely, the better holding of the prey which it takes with its foot while flying, 

 would have been more than rendered highly probable by an inspection of the foot of 

 the Nyctibius. The inner front toe and the back toe are spread out by the great ex- 

 tension of the enveloping flesh of the phalanges, to such a breadth as to give the foot 

 the character and form of a hand ; while the movement of these prehensile organs is 

 so adjusted that the back toe and the three front toes, pressed flat against one another, 

 can enclose anything as effectually as the palms of the hands. The [claw of the] 

 middle toe, which is serrated in the Caprimulgus, is simply dilated in the Nyctibius, a 

 peculiarity also of the swallows. Whatever deficiency of prehension this may give it, 

 when compared to the power of the serrated nail of the Caprimulgus, is amply com- 

 pensated for in the Nyctibius by the palm-like character of the foot, by the extraordi- 

 nary expansion of the toes, and by the quantity of membrane connecting them 

 together. All this would be a mere waste of power if it did not perform some 

 function like that which White assigned to the foot of the night-jar." — p. 48. 



The Palm-swift (Tachornis phcenicobia). — " I observed several small swallows fly- 

 ing above some cocoa-nut palms; they uttered, as they flew, a continued twittering 

 warble, shrill but sweet, which attracted my attention. I commenced a careful 

 search with my eye of \hc under surface of the fronds and spadices of one, and at 

 length discerned some masses of cotton projecting from some of the spathes, which I 

 concluded to be their nests. This conjecture proved correct ; for presently I disco- 

 vered a bird clinging to one of these masses, which I shot, and found to be this white- 

 rumped swift. On my lad's attempt to climb the tree, eight or ten birds flew in suc- 

 cession from various parts, where they had been concealed before. The tree, however, 



