6714 



Birds. 



it myself. You will appreciate the abundance of these beautiful 

 songsters when I say that within a few hundred yards in all directions 

 from this spot I followed not less than a dozen birds, not necessarily 

 all different individuals, because doubtless they resumed their strains. 

 The forest just here is extremely thick with underwood, composed of 

 small trees about the thickness of walking-sticks, bound strongly 

 together with climbing ferns, Passiflorae, &c. The sink-holes, large 

 and small, often shrouded by fallen leaves, make some caution neces- 

 sary, and besides this the swarms of mosquitoes and perpetual clamour 

 of Vireosylva olivacea, which abound here, were very distressing. 

 Generally, when I had cautiously crept up and was trying, without 

 moving, to catch sight of the songster, the song would be suddenly 

 broken off, and followed by a ' quank, quank,' soon repeated more 

 rapidly and becoming more distant. The wary bird had caught sight 

 of me first. At other times I managed to get nearer, and then the 

 song ceased ; a bird darted out stealthily and lowly, whose dark back 

 and rufous head could belong to no other than Merula Jamaicensis. 

 Several times, however, I was more successful ; I got close up without 

 disturbing him, but not without his seeing me. The song would again 

 cease, and I should at last espy him perched generally on the lower 

 limb of a large tree, near the trunk, but sometimes on a low shrub a 

 foot or two from the ground, where his colouring, in the sombre light, 

 made him particularly difficult to see. He would 'Quank, quank,' 

 flirting his wings and tail at each reiteration, then, as I kept quiet, re- 

 lapse into a puffed musing attitude, and, after keeping me waiting for 

 a quarter of an hour, drop and slide off among the bushes a foot or two 

 above the ground, to begin his song a hundred yards further on. But 

 on a few occasions I have, in birds disturbed by the man with me at 

 some distance, and which have taken refuge close by without seeing 

 me, seen the bird's bill and throat move as it commenced ' Quank, 

 quank,' till it seemed brimful of the lovely notes that were coming, 

 and burst into the first stave of the score given above ; but they found 

 me out before the second or flute-like notes were produced, and which 

 do not seem to occur till the bird has sung a stave or two. I have thus 

 given at length the grounds upon which I attribute this beautiful song 

 to this wary thrush, and would place it amongst the most lovely of 

 the warblers of the tropics. J am quite glad to see I am borne out by 

 an assertion of your usually most accurate old Doctor (' Birds of 

 Jamaica,' p. 259). 



" The Black Banana Bird is common in the deeper glens of the 

 forest. I shot one, the other day, swinging on a long strip of bark, 



