sometimes we hear him in the lone wood, uttering click, click, click, without variation of tone or
intermission, for many minutes together. His song, which I have heard only in spring, is rich and
mellow, much like the English Blackbird’s ; he sits in some thick tree, or wood, particularly at
earliest dawn, and pours forth his clear notes in a broken strain, and often in a subdued tone, as if
singing only to please himself.
“ I happened to wound slightly two of these birds on the same day, which I placed in a cage.
They were free and easy from the first, very clamorous, lively, and even headlong in their sudden
movements. I found that they would seize and devour with eagerness cockroaches, hard beetles,
worms, and even small lizards. I gave them a bunch of the ripe, but dry and insipid, berries of a
species of Ficus, which they readily picked pff and ate. The fruit of this fig they are fond of in a
state of freedom ; and such is their impudence that they prevent the Baldpate Pigeons, though so
much bigger, from partaking. The Baldpates would willingly eat the little figs also, but the
Hopping Dicks scream and fly at them, and peck their backs, so as to keep them fluttering from
branch to branch, reluctant to depart, yet unable to eat in comfort.
44 At the break of day, if we pass along a wooded mountain road, such as that lonely one at
Basin-spring, in Westmoreland, particularly when the parching winds called norths have set in, in
December and January, we see the Hopping Dick bounding singly along the ground in every part ;
but during the day they resort in numbers to the diminished, springs and ponds which yet remain,
where, after quenching their thirst, they enjoy the luxury of a bathe.
“ In the high mountains behind Spanish Town, this bird is called the 4 Twopenny Chick ’ ; but
in the parishes of Westmoreland and St. Elizabeth, I have heard him distinguished only by the
homely appellation which I have adopted. He is not confined to any particular locality.
Dr. Chamberlaine {Jam. Aim.) has ‘ never seen him in the lowlands.’ But around Bluefields he is
abundant, especially in the little belt of wood that girds the sandy sea-beach at Belmont, where one
may meet with him at all times. In the pastures of Mount Edgecumbe he is no less common. In
the highest districts, as Bluefields Peaks, though I have sometimes seen him, he is chiefly represented
by his congener, the Glass-eye :• in the solitudes of Basin-spring, a lower elevation, both species are
numerous.
“ In some 4 Contributions to Ornithology,’ by Dr. Richard Chamberlaine, published in the
Companion to the Jamaica Almanack for 1842, this bird is described. The following observations
are there quoted from a letter of Mr. Hill’s to the Doctor :—41 paid a visit the other day to the
Highgate mountains, a district in which our native Ouzel, the Hopping Dick, is exceedingly abundant.
On asking one morning the name of the bird, whose .clear, mellow-toned whistle I was then listening
to, a negro told me it was the Hopping Hick, and that they 44 always hear him when the long days
begin.” The long days had not yet begun ; but at early dawn, while the distant horizon was seen
but faintly gleaming through the dull grey break of daylight, and many of these Merles were gliding
from, one thicket to another, and dashing across the road with that bounding run from which they
derive the sobriquet of Hopping Dick, one bird anticipated the season of song, by repeatedly sounding
two or three cadences of that full deep whistle with which he salutes the lengthening year.
44 4 The forests skirting the mountain are his favourite haunt. I f he frequents the open slopes
and crests of the hills, he glides from tree to tree, just above the surface of the grass. I f he rises
above the lower branches of the pimento, or into some of the loftier shrubs, it is to visit the
Tillandsias, or parasitical wild-pines, to drink from within the heart-leaves at those reservoirs of
collected dews which are the only resource of the birds in these high mountains. His dark sooty
plumage, his brilliant orange bill, and his habit, when surprised or disturbed, of escaping by running
or flying low, and sounding all the while his alarm scream till he gets away into the thicket, completely
identify him with the European Blackbird.
“ ‘ I t was in the month of July, in 1834, that I first heard the song of this Ouzel, which I woul
call Merula saltator, as this name preserves his distinctive sobriquet of Hopping Dick, and refers to
his characteristic length of legs, both at the tarsus and the thighs. The shock of an earthquake ha
wakened all the living tenants of the plantation at which I was staying, when the voice of this bird,
as the alarm lulled into silence, was heard from a small coppice of cedar-trees, clear and mellow.
Though it was less varied than the song of the European Blackbird, it was very much like its tones
when it is heard over distant fields on a summer’s morning. I had been apprised that I should hear
it there, for it had sung in that grove daily at that season for three or four years; and though under
the disadvantage of being an anticipated song, it was a very agreeable recognition of the melody of
the European bird.
44 4 The next time I heard his music was in the month of May, 1836, in the same mountains. The
rains of the season had terminated, or only mid-day showers fell, the mornings and evenings being
refreshing and brilliant. I t was now not a single one of these birds I heard singing lonely in a
sequestered cluster of trees, but a hundred of them far and near, blending their voices together, or
vying with each other in rivalry of song. My frequent weekly journeys in these districts, from this
period to the end of August, were always cheered by this simultaneous outburst oi melody from
the Merula saltator.’
441 found a nest of this bird one day in the middle of August; it was affixed to the highest
perpendicular limb of a rather tall pimento in Mount Edgecumbe, and consisted of a rude cup formed
of the slender roots of pimento, and placed on a platform of leaves and small twigs. I t contained
two young, almost fledged, which flew to the ground before they could be seized, and one abortive
egg. The young displayed the plumage of the adult, even to the white webs on the two coverts;
but the eyes were dark greyish-brown, the beak blackish, and the feet dull horny yellow. The egg
measures 1 -^ inch by ; it is white, thickly splashed with dark and pale reddish-brown. Sometimes,
as I have been informed, a decaying stump is selected, or any other convenient hollow, into which
the bird carries 4 plantain trash,’ or similar materials, and forms a rude nest, laying three or
four eggs. Mr. Hill gives me a statement of a locality which is intermediate between these,
observing, 4 A friend of mine found the nest of a Hopping Dick. I t was built amid the dry leaves
that had lodged within the forks of a low branch of a mango-tree. I t was a structure of small
sticks, loosely woven, in the centre of which the young birds nestled among dried foliage.’ ”
Adult. General colour above dark slate-colour, slightly browner on the hind-neck and sides of
neck; crown of head somewhat blacker, as also the sides of the face; wing-coverts like the back,
two of the inner greater coverts broadly margined with white for nearly the whole of their outer
web; quills and tail brown, externally shaded with slate-colour; chin white; throat slaty-grey,
becoming paler on the fore-neck and rest of the under surface, the centre of the throat and abdomen
white; under tail-coverts slaty-black, with a triangular spot of white near the end of the feather;
under wing-coverts and axillaries slaty-grey, edged with white ; quills greyish below, more ashy along
the inner webs: 44 bill bright orange, blackish at tip ; feet deep fulvous ; iris dull orange ” (P. H.
Gosse). Total length 9 inches, culmen TO, wing 4’75, tail 3‘75, tarsus T55.
Adult'female. Apparently does not differ from the male. Total length 9’2 inches, culmen 1-05,
wing 4-4, tail 3*4, tarsus 1-45.
The description of the male is taken from a specimen in the Seebohm Collection, and that of the
female from Moneague in the Salvin-Godman Collection, to which it was presented by Dr. Bryant.
The figures in the Plate are drawn from specimens in the Seebohm Collection. [R. B. S.]