46 A NATURALIST ON DESERT ISLANDS. 



down in the cocl shade of the trees and listened to this 

 souKul love-song. It seemed to speak of slumberous 

 summer afternoons, of old English rectories with velvety 

 lawns stretching down to weed-grown, sluggish streams ; of 

 green water meadows where the cows stand swishing their 

 tails, by the hour, under the shade of fine old EngUsh trees. 



I was told by the islanders that in times of great drought, 

 these pigeons make excursions to the mainland in search 

 of water. They have been seen flying away in the 

 morning in great flocks to cover the ninety-eight miles of 

 sea which separate the island from Honduras, and noticed 

 again on their return in the evening of the same day. 

 Whether it is lack of water, or lack of sufficient food as 

 a consequence of the want of rain, which renders these 

 journeys necessary we caimot say; but we can well imagine 

 that these occasional daily migrations must have had a 

 sensible influence in the introduction of seeds of trees 

 and plants to these isolated patches of coral in the midst 

 of the Honduras sea. Even supposing, as Kerner has 

 contended from the results of his experiments, that seeds 

 in the excrement of pigeons are incapable of germination, 

 we may easily imagine there would be plenty left in their 

 crops on their return to the island, when, tired with their 

 journey across the water, any of them might perchance 

 fall an easy victim to a hawk. By a catastrophe of this 

 sort at such a moment, any seeds in the crop of the pigeon 

 would be scattered and spread upon the ground by the 

 sharp talons of its murderer. 



The vitelline warbler (Dendroica vitellina) is perhaps the 

 most interesting bird to be met with on Swan Island, 

 for it is peculiar to this island and Grand Cayman, and 

 is found nowhere else in the world. On Swan Island it is 

 infinitely more abundant than on Grand Cayman, and 

 exceedingly tame and unsuspicious. That it nests on 

 Swan Island there is no doubt, for we have shot and 

 described * specimens which exhibit various stages of 

 the plumage of quite young birds. We have, however, 



* See "Ibis " April, 1909. 



