Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 1 (1877).djvu/422

396 Then there is such an extent of cedar forest, dotted here and there with patches of highly-cultivated garden, that it is hard to find birds, or, when found, to follow them up. Mosquitoes are frightfully large and ferocious in summer and autumn, especially in and around the ponds and swamps. Many a time have I lost a long-expected shot by having to brush the little torments in dozens from my nose and eyes. And as to believing a word the good-natured coloured people tell you about the extraordinary birds they see, it is simply impossible.

But, in spite of these drawbacks, I enjoyed my ornithological labours vastly, and look back with pleasure not only to the successful stalk or lucky snap-shot which occasionally rewarded my exertions, but also to the numerous instructive hours I passed, field-glass in hand, in the deepest recesses of the swamps or on the open shore, watching the agile Mniotilta varia and the comical Totanus solitarius, or listening to the loud musical "chip" of Seiurus noveboracensis, and the harsh, grating cry of the Phaetons.

In the following notes I have largely availed myself of those of Major Wedderburn (late 42nd Highlanders) and Mr. Hurdis (formerly Controller of Customs in the islands), which have already been given to the public in a little work, entitled 'The Naturalist in Bermuda,' to which I have already alluded; also of the collection of birds formed, during the last twenty-five years, by Mr. Bartram, of Stocks Point, near St. George's. I trust I may be held excused for the constant references to these sources of information, both by the gentlemen named and by the indulgent ornithological reader. Major Wedderburn and Mr. Hurdis compiled their valuable notes long before my time, as may be inferred from the date of the book mentioned (1859); and since their departure no one, except my friend Mr. J.M. Jones, appears to have kept any record of the bird-life of the islands—more's the pity. With Mr. Bartram, now an elderly man, I struck up a great friendship, and I spent many an afternoon poring over his birds. Of these I made out a catalogue for him, likely, I think, to defy the criticism of his ordinary visitors, though I cannot quite vouch for its accuracy on all points. The genus Dendroëca is truly a "caution," and several of Mr. Bartram's specimens, ancient and somewhat dilapidated, puzzled me sorely.

He has about one hundred and ten species of Bermuda birds, and many "outsiders" mixed up with them; but I was careful,