He has been tempted, too, by orders from London shops for gaudy
birds--humming-birds especially. And when a single house, it is
said, advertises for 20,000 bird-skins at a time, no wonder if birds
grow scarce; and no wonder, too, if the wholesale destruction of
these insect-killers should avenge itself by a plague of vermin,
caterpillars, and grubs innumerable. Already the turf of the
Savannah or public park, close by, is being destroyed by hordes of
mole-crickets, strange to say, almost exactly like those of our old
English meadows; and unless something is done to save the birds, the
cane and other crops will surely suffer in their turn. A gun-
licence would be, it seems, both unpopular and easily evaded in a
wild forest country. A heavy export tax on bird-skins has been
proposed. May it soon be laid on, and the vegetable wealth of the
island saved, at the expense of a little less useless finery in
young ladies' hats.

So we shall see and hear but few birds round Port of Spain, save the
black vultures {87a}--Corbeaux, as they call them here; and the
black 'tick birds,' {87b} a little larger than our English
blackbird, with a long tail and a thick-hooked bill, who perform for
the cattle here the same friendly office as is performed by
starlings at home. Privileged creatures, they cluster about on
rails and shrubs within ten feet of the passer, while overhead in
the tree-tops the 'Qu'est ce qu'il dit,' {87c} a brown and yellow
bird, who seems almost equally privileged and insolent, inquires
perpetually what you say. Besides these, swallows of various kinds,
little wrens, {87d} almost exactly like our English ones, and night-
hawking goat-suckers, few birds are seen. But, unseen, in the
depths of every wood, a songster breaks out ever and anon in notes
equal for purity and liveliness to those of our English thrush, and