BIRDS OF THE BAHAMA ISLANDS. 
95 
the slightest effort at song, I took him out to cleanse the feathers 
of his breast from the dried blood that had flowed from his wound. 
I gently rubbed them with a soft, wet sponge, but whether he took 
cold, or whether I irritated the wound, I know not; but on being 
returned to the cage, he instantly began to breathe asthmatically 
with open beak, apparently with pain, interrupted now and then by 
fits of coughing, which continued all night, and on the next morning 
he died. On dissection, I could not find that the shot had pene- 
trated the chest, but they were imbedded in the muscles of the fore- 
arm, and had broken the scapula. 
“ A nest, reported to be of the Cashew Bird, was brought to 
me on the 18th of June, taken from a pimento-tree. It was a 
thick, circular mat, slightly concave, of a loose but soft texture, 
principally composed of cotton, decayed leaves, epidermis of weeds, 
slender stalks, and tendrils of passion-flower, intermingled, but 
scarcely interwoven. I think it probable that this had been sus- 
tained by a firmer framework; and that the person w T ho took it 
merely tore out the soft lining as a bed on which the eggs might 
be carried. The child who brought it could give no account of 
this. The eggs were two, long-oval, taper at the smaller end ; 
i^q- inch by nearly t 8 q ; white, sparingly dashed with irregular, 
dusky spots in a rude ring around the larger end. The embryo 
was at this time formed.” 
The Bahama Finch is known to the inhabitants by the name of 
Banana Bird, and they seem to apply this name indiscriminately to 
all the smaller fruit-eating birds with which they happen to be unac- 
