1894
March 1
(No 3)
Martinique
positive stupefaction, at others my emotions were so
overpowering that I could not [delete] speak [/delete] trust myself
to speak. Miss Francis confessed to me this evening
that she was similarly overcome and her brother
[delete] also [/delete] said that she spoke scarcely a word all the
time. She was in the garden and behaved so
strangely that he feared she was ill. How can scenes
which awake such emotions be described. It is
presumptuous to attempt to write about them
at all.

  In the garden we saw Margarops deusirostris,
Elainea martinica, Quiscalus inflexirostris, Euphonia
flavifrons, Coereba martinica, Bellona exilis, Eulampis
jugularis, E. holosericens, Pyrrhulgra notis, and
Thryothorus martinicensis

  Elainea is a curious bird with little of the manners
of our Flycatchers, very active and alert taking short
flights and hopping from twig to twig, and when
perched rolling the head from side to side and
bobbing it up and down. It has two very musical
calls one very like the phoebe note of our Sayornis,
the other resembling the higher notes of the song
of Vireo solitarius. Chapman says this bird feeds on berries.

  The only real song that we heard in this garden,
however, was that of the Thryothorus. It was a
bright, glancing song reminding me of that of
the English Robin but with a gushing trill almost
exactly like our House Wren's. We heard it frequently.