At the same time, I should observe, that Mr. Hill thinks that
_Acanthylis pelasgia_ visits Jamaica in its periodical migration.
Referring to an incident which he had mentioned to me before, he says,
“The migratory _hirundines_, whose squadrons moving in circles, I gave
you a sketch of in March last, as seen by me at that time passing
over us from south to north, (and I have observed them yearly either
in that month or in April,) I conclude to be flocks of _pelasgia_
on their passage to their summer homes northward, after wintering
in the tropics. The circular movement of the migratory retinue; the
direction of their flight; their known wintering on the neighbouring
intertropical shores; their association at all times in multitudinous
numbers; and the cry with which they announce their passage, as they
leisurely course round,—_tsippee, tsippee, tsippee_, seem to me so many
identifications of this species.”
The Blue Swallow has the same propensity to bring up his family in
darkness, as his purple brother. The stipe of an old palm, whose porous
centre decays, while the iron fibres of the exterior remain strong,
is his ordinary resort. At the beginning of April, I observed several
pairs flying in and out of holes, bored I suppose by the Woodpecker, in
the stipe of a dead Cocoa-nut still tall and erect, but a mere leafless
post, tottering in the breeze and ready to fall. At the middle of May,
Sam observed several pairs entering a round hole, about two inches in
diameter, beneath the eaves of Belmont house.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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