ORNITHOLOGY IN 1851. 
required some force to detach them. The Tree Bunting ( Fringilla 
canadensis), Black Finch (F. hyemalis ), and White Crowned Finch 
(F. leucophrys ) — (I have already mentioned the nocturnal song of 
this bird, which breeds throughout Rupert’s Land. In attempting 
to express its clear loud notes by syllables, the nearest approach I 
could make, was cheet , cheet, tareet, cheet , cheet. The first two sylla- 
bles are loud and high, the next two short, and the two last lower 
and softer) — were also early visitors, and soon after their arrival, 
began to construct their nests. The Lapland finch was also seen, 
but only on its passage to the coast. The Lestris richardsonii flew 
about in pairs, and was observed to have the habit of quartering the 
ground like the Hen Harriers. In the stomach of one which I killed, 
there was the skin and some of the bones of a mouse rolled into a 
ball, like the pellets that are rejected from the stomach of an owl. 
The Purple Throated Diver visited Bear Lake River in considerable 
numbers. This species is easily distinguished from the great Nor- 
thern Diver (( 7 . glacialis) while flying, by its swollen bluish-grey 
neck. Almost all the summer birds arrived before we left that 
neighbourhood ; but I have enumerated only the earliest comers, or 
those which I had not previously seen in so high a latitude, and 
whose range is not correctly given in the Fauna Boreali Ameri- 
cana” 
A Naturalist's Sojourn in Jamaica, by Philip Henry Gosse, 
A.L.S., &c. 1851. Longman. — Mr. Gosse recorded the habits of 
the birds in his “ Birds of Jamaica,” and the present work, devoted 
to information of a more general kind, relative to all the productions 
of the island, both animal and vegetable, gives us only an occasional 
paragraph connected with Ornithology ; more valuable, however, as 
the result of observations made on the spot. 
Of singing birds, alluding to the now obsolete theory, that bright 
plumage is incompatible with brilliant song : “ In Jamaica it is 
certainly very far from truth. The groves and fields of this sunny 
isle ring with the melody of birds to a degree fully equal, in my 
judgment, to that of Europe. In the lone forests of the mountain 
heights, the Glass-eye Merle (Merula jamaicensis) pours forth a rich 
and continued song ; and that mysterious harmonist, the Solitaire 
( Ptiliogonys armillatus ), utters his sweet but solemn trills, long 
drawn and slow, like broken notes of a psalm, so perfectly in 
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