One day in April, as I was riding past the cliffs at Cave, on the road to Savanna-le-Mar, I observed two Cotton-tree Sparrows, whose motions arrested my attention. They were both males in adult plumage. One presented himself to the other, opening his beak to the utmost; when the other seized something in his mouth, and tugged at it; this action was repeated several times, but whatever was the object pulled at, it appeared pretty firmly attached to the lower mandible, and refused to come away. From the evident desire of the one operated on, I conjecture that it was an application for the removal of some extraneous object which had accidentally stuck into the flesh of the mouth, and gave pain or inconvenience. But if so, how interesting an instance of intelligence communicated; for intelligence, and combined action, there certainly was. At length the operator, having done what he could, flew off: but the poor unsuccessful patient, after a few seconds, followed him, and sought him again in the bush, while I rode on my way. A male which I shot, and but slightly wounded, displayed much energy, and some ingenuity, in its persevering efforts to escape, in which, after being twice captured, it at length succeeded. When I attempted to seize it, it bit at me fiercely, and pinched my finger so forcibly as I could not have anticipated. The beak is very powerful, doubtless for the sake of opening or crushing hard seed-vessels. I have dissected a female at the end of April, with eggs in the ovary as large as pigeon-shot, the plumage of which differed from that of the male, only in the black being _not quite_ so bright. The name _violacea_, is a strange misnomer, as there is not the slightest tinge of violet. Robinson has mentioned the prevalence of these birds on the Liguanea mountains, in a passage so interesting, that I quote it entire. “In ascending from Mr. Elletson’s estate called Merryman’s Hill, about four miles from Hope River plantation, after you get about a mile and a half beyond the said Merryman’s Hill, the air suddenly turns cool, and the plants and trees are entirely different from what you observed before, excepting two or three, which continue all the way up. There also you hear the Black Bulfinches first begin to whistle, which are continued all the way up to the top of the mountains; and, indeed, they are the only birds you hear, for there are hardly any Nightingales; but they have the Grey-eyed Thrush, whose notes are not much inferior in sweetness but longer. In these mountains hardly any cockroaches are seen, but a very small kind. The wood-ant, that destructive insect, is also a stranger to these mountains.” (MSS. iii. 131.) By the Grey-eyed Thrush, I suspect he means the Glass-eye: or else the White-eyed Flycatcher.