170 
BLUEFIELDS. 
roof-ridge of the dwelling-house, and utter a shrill 
but not unmelodious chant. From the green tus- 
socks of the Guinea-grass fields comes the singular 
hollow cry of the Tichicro {Coturniculus tixicrus), 
and now and again he runs to the summit of a stone, 
or jumps upon a wall, and warbles a sweet and low 
song. The clear whistle of the Banana-bird {Icterus 
leucopteryx), like the tones of a clarionet, resound 
from the fruit trees, among whose deep green foliage 
his gay hues, rich yellow, white, and black, glance 
fitfully as he shoots to and fro ; and his companions, 
the little Blue Quits {Euphonia Jamaica), equally 
devoted admirers of a ripe sour-sop or custard-apple, 
accompany his loud notes with strains of their own, 
full of soft warbling music. And the most minute 
of birds, the tiny Vervain Humming-bird {Mellisuga 
humilis), not larger than a school-boy’s thumb, utters 
a song so sweet, but of sounds so attenuated withal, 
that you wonder who the musician can be, and are 
ready to think it the voice of an invisible fairy ; when 
presently you see the atom of a performer perched on 
the very topmost twig of a mango or orange-tree, his 
slender beak open and his spangled throat quivering, 
as if he would expire his little soul in the effort. 
But there is one master-musician, whose varied 
notes leave the efforts of his rivals at an immeasurable 
distance behind him. It is he that makes our sunny 
glades and shady groves eminently melodious, by 
night and day, sustaining almost the whole burden 
himself. 
AevSpecov iy ’irerdKoia'i Kade^ofievrj TrvKivoLaiv, 
H re rpcoTrucra xeet TroAuTJX^a (pwvrjv. 
Ody$s. xix. 520. 
