WHITEBELLY DOVE. 313 



Here we see the beautiful and gentle Whitebelly Dove 

 walking to and fro in the greenwood shade, picking 

 up fruit-seeds ; its light-coloured plumage rendering 

 it conspicuous ; while from all sides the mournful 

 sobbing notes of this species resound. 



The negroes delight to ascribe imaginary words to 

 the voices of birds, and indeed for the cooings of 

 many of the pigeons, this requires no great stretch 

 of imagination. The beautiful Whitebelly complains 

 all day, in the sunshine as well as the storm, " Kain, 

 come, wet me through ! " each syllable uttered with a 

 sobbing separateness, and the last prolonged with such 

 a melancholy fall, as if the poor bird were in the ex- 

 tremity of suffering. But it is the note of health, of 

 joy, of love ; the utterance of exuberant animal hap- 

 piness ; a portion of that universal song wherewith 

 " everything that hath breath may praise the Lord/' 

 The plumage, as usual in this family, is very soft and 

 smooth ; the expression of the countenance most en- 

 gagingly meek and gentle. And it is a gentle bird. 

 I have taken one into my hand, when just caught in 

 a springe, full grown and in its native wildness ; and 

 it has nestled comfortably down, and permitted its 

 pretty head and neck to be stroked, without an effort 

 to escape, without a flutter of its wings. 



A short turn of the path brings us out of the^wood 

 upon an open plateau, whence the eye commands a 

 noble view of the coast for many a league, and of the 

 silvery Caribbean Sea stretching away to a far distant 

 horizon. The sun is just rising out of a bank of reful- 



