6590 



Notes on the 



" I have not met with the blue partridge yet, but, from what T hear, 

 it is an eastern bird which does not come so far to the leeward as this. 

 During the journey I have alluded to, I devoted the greater part of my 

 time and attention to Ornithology, and it will perhaps be as well to 

 conclude this letter with a few notes of observations I then made, and 

 reserve these mountains for a future letter. My first day was across 

 a forest district of the Black Grounds, partially cleared and known as 

 Hector's River. As my first stage was to Oxford, I took the op- 

 portunity of making some further inquiries respecting the great macaw; 

 there were several of Mr. White's old servants still on the estate, but 

 1 was unable to allay the suspicion and astonishment so strange a sub- 

 ject excited with the negroes, and anything they said was evidently 

 quite worthless ; but 1 have in other quarters been constantly on the 

 alert for information : I have never seen anything of them myself, and 

 they appear equally unknown to the negro sportsmen. A gentleman 

 who has property, and has long resided in this district, however, told 

 me he had constantly seen them : at my request, he was kind enough 

 to enumerate the occasions he could distinctly remember; and it 

 seemed about four or five times in twenty-five years, and then they 

 were always dying at a great height. I think we may conclude from 

 this that they certainly are not common in these lofty forests, but are 

 to be placed in the list of ' occasional wanderers' to the island. The 

 other three species are extremely abundant. 



" The only bird of particular interest which occurred to me in the 

 swamps of St. Elizabeth's was the beautiful Ortygometra Carolina; 

 1 shot it, after watching it some time, at the edge of a pool, busily 

 feeding on what proved to be a leaf of some water-plant partially 

 macerated, exactly in the state a botanical investigator would like it 

 if he wished to examine the structure, the cellular portion easily 

 separating from the fibrous. It is in this state I observe that water- 

 plants afford nutriment to great numbers of these birds, of many 

 allied species. The Santa Cruz mountains yielded me nothing of note 

 but a male specimen of your Ephialtes grammicus ; the colours rather 

 brighter and size smaller than the females. Whilst exploring a large 

 cave near Peru, another flew out of a recess : I could find no nest, but 

 they do not seem uncommon in the Santa Cruz range. I have never, 

 however, seen or heard of them on the north side, where the brown 

 owl always refers to Nyctibius. At the foot of the same mountains 

 I procured a beautiful little falcon, whose blue back and slenderer 

 form make it very distinct from Falco columbarius. Vere is a most 

 peculiar district as to the features of the country, — a plain of dark mud, 

 which reminded me of the Nile Valley, and covered, where active cul- 



