University of Virginia Library

FEBRUARY 13.

Two Jamaica nightingales have established themselves on the orange-tree which grows against my window, and their song is most beautiful. This bird is also called ' the mocking-bird," from its facility of imitating, not only the notes of every other animal, but—I am told—of catching every tune that may be played or sung two or three times in the house near which it resides, after which it will go through the air with the greatest taste and precision, throwing in cadences and ornaments that Catalani herself might envy.

But by far the most curious animal that I have yet seen in Jamaica is " the soldier," a species of crab, which inhabits a shell like a snail's, so small in proportion to its limbs, that nothing can be more curious or admirable than the machinery by which it is enabled to fold them up instantly on the slightest alarm. They inhabit the mountains, but regularly once a-year travel in large troops down to the sea-side to spawn and change their shells. They are seldom used in Jamaica except for soups, which are reckoned delicious : that which was brought to me was a very small ope, the shell being no bigger than a large snail's. although the animal itself , when marching with his house on his back, appears to be above thrice the size ; but I am told

that they are frequently as large as a man's fist. It was found alone in the public road : ow it came to be in so solitary a state I know not, for in general they move in a armies, and march towards the sea in a straight line ; I am afraid by his being found alone, that my soldier must have been a deserter.