The birds of Jamaica

White of Selbourne has somewhere expressed the gratification which would be afforded to him by a sight of the _hirundines_ of the “hot and distant island” of Jamaica. We know, i...

“With regard to Hawks, I have had many opportunities of observing their habits here, as I have a large common, and a flock of turkeys. They perform successive circular movements...

This Owl does not seem to affect the deep forests, although it haunts shady places in the vicinity of estates and open grounds, doubtless because in such places its prey abounds...

In some parts of Jamaica this bird bears the appellation, most absurdly misapplied, of “Turtle-dove:” it is occasionally shot for the table, being usually fat and plump. It is a...

Having mentioned the occurrence of this bird to my notice, in a letter to Mr. Hill, he favoured me with the following interesting account of his own acquaintance with the specie...

As closely allied to the Purple Martin, in manners, as in form and colouring, I long mistook the present bird for that well-known species, as I think others have done also. The...

Scarcely larger than the average size of the Humming-birds, this little Creeper is often seen in company with them, probing the same flowers, and for the same purpose, but in a...

The refreshing coolness of this road, its unbroken solitude, combined with the peculiarity and luxuriance of the vegetation, made it one of my favorite resorts. Not a tree, from...

In the autumn, however, they began to be numerous again upon the mountain, and having, on the 13th of November, captured two young males sucking the pretty pink flowers of _Uren...

That this is the species of which M. Lesson has figured the female in his Oiseaux Mouches, pl. 79, there can be no doubt. His figure is a very fair representation; though it is...

The common names of this bird are bestowed in allusion to the tint of the iris of the eye: this, as Mr. Hill observes, “is not absolutely white, but so transparently suffused wi...

In its winter residence with us, the Black-throat prefers the edges of tall woods, in unfrequented mountainous localities. I have scarcely met with it in the lowlands. The summi...

I have not observed in the vicinity of Bluefields, the predilection alluded to by my friend of this bird for the Palm-tribe. Several pairs have nested under my notice, but none...

In April the Judy begins to arrange the domestic economy of the season; and if the cradle of his young is not so elaborate a structure as some others, it makes up in quantity wh...

The two specimens which first came into my hands, early in October, manifested signs of a seasonal change of plumage. One had the head prettily covered with pale rusty spots, ea...

Regularly at nightfall, during the summer, I used to see many parties of Tinklings fly over Bluefields, with the usual vociferation, and wend their way to a spreading cotton-tre...

A short stumpy bird, and rather inelegant from the shortness of its tail, the Blue Quit reminds me of the Nut-hatches. It is very common about homesteads, where it frequents fru...

[73] Length 7³⁄₄ inches, expanse 10¹⁄₂, flexure 3¹⁄₁₀, tail 3, rictus ⁶⁄₁₀, tarsus ⁹⁄₁₀; middle toe ³⁄₄. Irides dark hazel; beak and feet black. Male. Plumage black; an arched s...

This species greatly resembles the Red-bellied Woodpecker of Wilson, (_C. Carolinus_,) from which it may be distinguished by the plumage of the rump and tail-coverts being barre...

The statement that the Blackbird builds in company, forming an immense nest of basket-work by the united labours of the flock, is universally maintained by the inhabitants of th...

I add a few particulars of some which I kept from early age. I shot a young one on the 2nd of September, breaking the tarsus; and about a week afterwards another was brought me...

No description can give an adequate notion of the lustrous radiance of this most lovely bird; though it has not yet found a place in our Ornithologies. I presume it to be the “_...

[98] Length 21¹⁄₂ inches, expanse 35¹⁄₂, flexure 9³⁄₄, tail 3¹⁄₂, rictus 3³⁄₄, tarsus 4, middle toe 2⁸⁄₁₀. Irides pale straw-yellow; feet, cheeks and orbits, pale pea-green; bea...

During the winter we met with this species on one or two occasions, always solitary, wading in the shallows of Crab-pond, and picking. The stomachs of those I obtained, containe...

To this interesting note, I have little to add. At Crabpond, where rounded clumps of mangroves are scattered like islets in a lake, we have observed it frequently running quickl...

[121] Length 14 inches, expanse 26³⁄₄, flexure 8¹⁄₂, tail 2⁹⁄₁₀, rictus 2⁷⁄₁₀, naked tibia 3, tarsus 4¹⁄₂, middle toe 1⁷⁄₁₀. Intestine 12 inches, two cæca attached by a mesenter...

The Teal which from the absence of the white crescent in both sexes, I have thus named, is well known in Jamaica, and has probably been mistaken for the female of _discors_, wit...

“The sympathy shewn by gregarious birds for their wounded companions is usually never more strongly manifested than in the Boobies. In the wanton sport of shooting at them when...

It is, however, a bird of considerable commercial importance; for its eggs, in common with those of the Noddy (_Megalopterus stolidus_) and the Sandwich Tern (_Thalasseus Cantia...

+Morris’s+ Catalogue of British Fossils; comprising all the Genera and Species hitherto described; with references to their Geological Distribution, and to the Localities in whi...