GLASS-EYE.[29]
Shine-eye.—Fish-eye.
Merula Jamaicensis.
| Turdus Jamaicensis, | Gm.—Lath. Ind. Or. i. 328. |
| Merula leucophthalma, | Hill. |
[29] Length 8½ inches, expanse 14, flexure 4⁹⁄₁₀, tail 3¼, rictus 1¹⁄₁₀, tarsus 1½, 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 ¼ 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.