have been well washed ere
one reached the stream. As it was, the bathers came back with their
clothes wet through. No matter. The sun was up, and half an hour
would dry all again.

One object, on the edge of the forest, was worth noticing, and was
watched long through the glasses; namely, two or three large trees,
from which dangled a multitude of the pendant nests of the Merles:
{209} birds of the size of a jackdaw, brown and yellow, and mocking-
birds, too, of no small ability. The pouches, two feet long and
more, swayed in the breeze, fastened to the end of the boughs with a
few threads. Each had, about half-way down, an opening into the
round sac below, in and out of which the Merles crept and fluttered,
talking all the while in twenty different notes. Most tropic birds
hide their nests carefully in the bush: the Merles hang theirs
fearlessly in the most exposed situations. They find, I presume,
that they are protected enough from monkeys, wild cats, and gato-
melaos (a sort of ferret) by being hung at the extremity of the
bough. So thinks M. Leotaud, the accomplished describer of the
birds of Trinidad. But he adds with good reason: 'I do not,
however, understand how birds can protect their nestlings against
ants; for so large is the number of these insects in our climes,
that it would seem as if everything would become their prey.'

And so everything will, unless the bird murder be stopped. Already
the parasol-ants have formed a warren close to Port of Spain, in
what was forty years ago highly cultivated ground, from which they
devastate at night the northern gardens. The forests seem as empty
of birds as the neighbourhood of the city; and a sad answer will
soon have to be given to M. Leotaud's question:--

'The insectivorous tribes are the true representatives of our
ornithology. There are so many which feed on insects and their
larvae, that it may be asked with much reason, What would become of
our vegetation, of ourselves, should these insect destroyers
disappear? Everywhere may be seen' (M. L. speaks, I presume, of
five-and-twenty years ago: my experience would make me substitute
for his words, 'Hardly anywhere can be seen') 'one of these
insectivora in pursuit or seizure of its prey, either on the wing or
on the trunks of trees, in the coverts of thickets or in the calices
of flowers. Whenever called to witness one of those frequent
migrations from one poi