1894
March 23
(No 2)
Trinidad, B.W.I.
Caparo
  A Greive (Merula gymnopthalma) sings much like our Robin.
Then comes a series of clear whistles and a long trilling
song recalling our Field Sparrows. Those notes are made by
a pair of Jacomors which, perched on dead twigs a few
feet above the ground on the opposite side of the stream
have been catching flies in plain sight of my position
the whole afternoon. Near them are a pair of Myiodynastes
audax, pretty birds sitting close together on the same
branch silent as a rule but with loud explosive
voices when they do cry out.
[margin]Sunset on
the river
bank at
the edge of
the forest[/margin]
  Another Flycatcher is Megarynchus pitangua. It looks
very like Pitangus but has a wholly different call
a succession of shrill, rapidly uttered notes which closely
to my ear resemble a Parrot's very clearly.
  The sun is sinking fast and the Greives are clucking,
chattering and making the kur-wee call which [delete]so clearly resembles[/delete] is so very like
those of our Porzana carolina. They dash about among
the cacao trees chasing one another.
  Directly overhead I hear a Hummer droning but I
cannot see him. This droning, like that of a big
bumble bee, is scarce ever out of hearing in these woods &
all the species seem to make it in the same tone.
  The sunlight has just faded in the clearing and
from a thicket on the river bank directly opposite
& within twenty paces of where I am sitting rises
the weird, unearthly call of a Tinamou. What a
sound! As beautiful as any bird voice I ever listened
to and yet as cold and heartless as the voice of a fiend.
It is like the tinkling of ice. I shiver as I [delete]sit[/delete] listen!