384 Birds Srr?i Dii)i/>g a Trip to the TTV.s/ TnrJins. 
being common, hut I only saw this one specimen. The 
following extracts are from Goase's "Birds of Jamaica": 
" Always ronspicuous from its liriglit grass-green eoat, and 
" crimson -velvet gorget, it is still a very tame bird ; yd ^his seems 
" rather the tameness of indifference than of confiJenee ; it will allow 
" a person to approaeh very h'ar, and, if disturbed, alight on another 
"twig a few yards distant. We have often captured specimens with 
"the in.sect net, and slrni'k them down with a switch." 
" It is a general favourite, and has received a favourite name, 
" that of Eobin Bedbreast." 
" I have never seen the Tody on the ground ; but it hops about 
" the twigs of low tre.es searching for minute insects, occasionally ut- 
" tering a querulous, sibilant note. But more commonly it is seen 
" sitting patiently on a twig, with its head drawn in, the beak pointing 
" upwards, the loose plumage puffed out, when it appears much larger* 
"than it. really is. But this ab-traclion is more apparent than real; 
"if we watch it, we shall see that the odd -looking grey eye.s are 
" glancing hither and thither, and that, ever and anon, the bird sallies 
" out upon a .short fcidde flight, snaps at something in the air, and re- 
" turns to his twig to swallow it." 
" I have never seen the Tody ea*ing vegetable food ; but T have 
" occasionally found in its stomach, among minute coleopterous and 
" hymenopterous insects a few small seeds. One, which I kept in a 
" cage, would snatch worms from me with impudent audacity ; and then 
" beat them violently against the peich or sides of the cage to divide 
"before he swallowed them.' 
" One, captured with a net in April, on being turned into a 
" room, began immediately to caich flies, and other minute insects that 
"flilti.i] r! irnlii ily liHle T/iieidar. that infested my dried birds. 
"At lhi>. t'liipldyiiiiMil hr conliiiui'd incessantly, and most sueeessfully, 
" all that evening, and all the next day from earliest dawn to dusk. 
" and although I took no account, I judged that on an 
"average, he made a capture per minute." 
" As it sits on a twig in the verdure of spring, its oTass-green 
" coat is sometimes undistinguishabl" from the leaves in which it is 
"embowered, itself looking like a leaf ; but a little change of position. 
" bringing its throat into the sun's rays, the light suddenly gleams as 
"from a glowing coal. Occasionally too, this crimson plumage is puffed 
" out into a globose form, when its appearance is particularly beau- 
"tiful." ( 
" The Tody, as has been long known, builds in holes in the 
"earth, in the manner of the Kingfisher The combination 
" of circumstances that make up a fit nesting place for it, may be well 
" understood from the following selection of a burrow, by a pair of 
"birds, in the garden of a fri-nd. A box filled with earth had been 
" placed on tressels within water, for growing lettuces from seed, or 
* Total lenght 4iins., tail If. 
