66 
THE HOUSE-MARTIN. 
Tlie young which fall to the ground are opened on the spot. 
" Their peritoneum," says Humboldt, " is extremely loaded with fat, 
a layer of which reaches from the abdomen to the anus, forming a 
kind of cushion between the legs of the bird. This quantity of fat 
in frugivorous animals not exposed to the light, and exerting very 
little muscular motion, reminds us of what has long since been 
observed in the fattening of geese and oxen. It is well known how 
favourable to this process are darkness and repose." Only in such 
localities as we have described is the guacharo found, and we believe 
that he is confined to the Spanish Main and the Island of Trinidad. 
In a note to Mr. Gosse's delightful book, " The Naturalist in 
Jamaica," occur some very interesting particulars about the house- 
martin (Hirundo iJoeciterna). His favourite haunts are the silent 
solitary caverns in cliff's and rugged hills, where he excavates for 
himself and his family a tiny home of sand. When the spring 
equinox has blown over, with its fitful showers of rain, he takes 
advantage of the little puddles round about to collect the mud 
requisite for extending and patching the stucco-work of his gi-otto; 
relieving his toil by a low and hardly musical gossip with his mate. 
This subdued " twittering talk " he keeps up during the unwearied 
hours he spends by her side, and with her nurslings, throughout the 
summer. But in the gusty autumn season he changes his habits 
and his voice. Quitting his cave-retreat, he joins thi'ee or four of 
his kind, and, perched on the upper branch of some neighbouring 
tree, breaks into a loud, full song, so different in tone and character 
from his ordinary strain as to astound and perplex the hearer. His 
singing is then full of ecstatic cadences, Avhich are continued and 
repeated with ever-increasing vehemence. 
Each species to its peculiar habitat. In Jamaica, the glass-eye 
merle, with her rich protracted strain, and the solitaire, with 
sweet, mysterious, long-drawn melody, like the echoes of a solemn 
psalm, frequent the lone forests of the mountain-heights. In the 
dense green woods of the lower hills live the black shrike and the 
