﻿INCIDENTAL REMARKS. 



259 



West Indies and the adjoining Isthmus. It is here 

 that nature forms the channel of communication, as it 

 were, between the ornithology of the two great divisions 

 of the American continent, not merely as regards species, 

 but in the genera and types of form.* It is well known 

 that the summer migratory birds of the northern states 

 retire southward in the winter, as do those of Europe ; 

 and we suspect that the limits of their range in that 

 direction are marked by the West India islands ; but 

 whether this is actually the case, or whether the greater 

 part retire to the warm and fertile provinces of Texas, 

 Honduras, and Guatamala, is altogether uncertain, and 

 the question can only be determined by actual residents 

 on the spot. We should recommend to every naturalist 

 who may pass the winter in the West Indies, carefully 

 to note the times of arrival and departure of such birds 

 as are not constant residents, and more especially to 

 collect those of the latter description. Such species as 

 do not migrate northward are probably characteristic 

 of the southern ornithology ; and thus we might be 

 able to trace the harmonious union of the two divisions 

 of the continent, each connected by a slender, but well 

 marked, passage in geographic configuration and zoolo- 

 gical distribution. Among the humming-birds figured 

 by Edwards, as inhabiting Jamaica, is a most beautiful 

 one with a forked tail, quite unknown to modern col- 

 lectors ; and of this family we may in general remark 

 that those only of Tortola are known to our collectors. 

 All the water birds of these islands require investigation 

 for the same reason as we have just alluded to when 

 speaking of the migratory species. The peacock-tur- 

 key, a splendid birdf, is supposed to be confined to the 

 forests of Honduras, and a few specimens would be 



* More extended observations on this subject will be found in the Geo- 

 graphy and Classification of Animals, p. 69. ; and in Murray's Encyclo- 

 pedia of Geography. 



t The only specimen which, we believe, was ever in this country, was 

 in Bullock's museum, and was purchased for the French government, at 

 the sale of that collection, as near as we can recollect, for about 25/. We 

 ivere too poor to secure it for the British Museum. 



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