Birds. 



6721 



with a bit of cotton ; but it refused to enter, wheeling past the aper- 

 ture in the roof, uttering the plaintive cry with evident alarm. I then 

 found that we had left the opposite door open, and a man and horse 

 standing near it no doubt alarmed the wary little bird. The door 

 was shut, and it entered. I then went in, and for some time could 

 discover nothing of the hiding-place. At length it darted out of a 

 dark corner, where there was a deep recess between the angle of the 

 wall and roof. A negro boy I sent up found only two bits of cotton 

 placed on the top of the wall. On returning, a week after, to my dis- 

 appointment these had been removed ; and though the birds were 

 about, all my searches after their nest were in vain. I observed 

 another pair constantly at a particular part of the road which passes 

 through the German settlement here ; but the houses were all low, 

 and evidently not inhabited by them. Wishing to shoot one, T 

 stopped to watch them, and then noticed they often disappeared 

 among some bushes on a steep hill-side. I sent to examine the spot, 

 and my expectations were considerably raised on hearing there was a 

 cave. A pair flew round on my approaching the aperture, in evident 

 alarm ; and, concealing myself, after long waiting, I discovered they 

 entered a small crevice in the limestone in the interior of the cave. 

 The aperture was just large enough to admit the hand ; but to my 

 disappointment there were then (19th July) three young. They were 

 naked and blind, the skin of a slate-gray colour. The nest, of which 

 the hollow was not more than three-quarters of an inch deep, was a 

 structure of considerable art. The interior was lined with a bed of 

 the softest silk-cotton, intermingled with feathers, among which those 

 of a green parrot were conspicuous. The foundation and external 

 portions were composed of a flocculent substance ; what it is I am 

 not sure, unless it be silk-cotton picked off the ground, and strength- 

 ened by intermingled soil and bits of trash. With this is mixed the 

 pappus of, I suspect, Composite and Tillandsia?, but the seeds are 

 broken off. The whole mass is intertwined with bits of Lycopodium, 

 which, though very ornamental, is extraordinary, as in the narrow, 

 deep hole it could not add to the concealment as in an exterior nest. 

 The diameter was about 5 inches, the outside depth If inch. It 

 was the only nest, apparently, in the cave. 



" Yours faithfully, 



" W. Osburn. 



" P. H.Gosse, Esq., F.R.S." 



xvir. 



