_Shine-eye._—_Fish-eye._
_Merula Jamaicensis._
_Turdus Jamaicensis_, +Gm.+—Lath. Ind. Or. i. 328.
_Merula leucophthalma_, +Hill+.
[29] Length 8¹⁄₂ inches, expanse 14, flexure 4⁹⁄₁₀, tail 3¹⁄₄,
rictus 1¹⁄₁₀, tarsus 1¹⁄₂, middle toe 1¹⁄₁₀. Irides bluish white,
somewhat pellucid; feet dark horn, soles yellowish; beak black,
basal half of lower mandible sometimes yellow. Whole head dark
umber-brown, except on the chin, where it is speckled with white.
Back blackish ash, tinged with brown on wing-primaries: tail
blue-black. Breast and sides dusky ash, silky; separated from the
brown of the head by a narrow transverse band of pure white: belly
silky white; under tail-coverts black, with broad white tips. Sexes
alike in plumage and size. Intestine 12 inches; two cæca ¹⁄₄ inch
long, slender.
This is exclusively a mountain bird; inhabiting the very same
localities, and subsisting on the same food as the Solitaire, presently
to be described; the pulpy berries of a Scrophularious shrub, which the
negroes thence call _Glass-eye berry_. I have never found any animal
substance in the stomach of this species, numbers of which I have
examined; one in December contained many of the little scarlet figs,
from the tree on which I shot it: in February the green pimento-berries
are devoured by them; and later in the spring, it appears, the shining
fruit of the Sweetwood (_Laurus_) is attractive to them. On the 30th of
March, my lad shot a male Glass-eye by the road-side at Cave, scarcely
a stone’s throw from the sea, and level with it; the stomach contained
the berries of this _Laurus_, which is abundant just there. This is
the only instance in which I ever heard of the species, except in a
mountain locality.
The common names of this bird are bestowed in allusion to the tint of
the iris of the eye: this, as Mr. Hill observes, “is not absolutely
white, but so transparently suffused with a hue of olive, that the eye
has the look of very common glass.”
The figure, attitudes, and motions of the Glass-eye are those of its
fellow, the Hopping Dick; it is, however, much more recluse, and
jealous of being seen. The dashing manner of flight across the narrow
wood-paths are the same in both birds, but the loud and startling tones
of the lowland bird are wanting in this. The Glass-eye has but one note
_that I have heard_; a single low “_quank_,” frequently repeated as he
hops from bush to bush, or plunges into the thicket. Dr. Chamberlaine
attributes to him “the same loud sonorous chirp as he stealthily scuds
from one dark recess of the forest to another;” but I should think him
mistaken, were it not that Robinson, who gives a very correct drawing
of the species by the name of _Turdus capite ferrugineo_, and describes
it as common in the Liguanea mountains, affirms that “it whistles like
our English Blackbirds.” (MSS.)
The Woodthrush of Wilson, (_Turdus mustelinus_, Gm.,) a delightful
songster, is a regular annual visitor in the neighbourhood of Spanish
Town, but I have not seen it.