IlIRDS. 501 



bar pigeon of the eastern seas is an exception. It is a copper and green 

 species, with a white tail, and beautiful pendant feathers on the neck. It 

 looks so heavy that one would hardly think it could fly a mile, and yet it 

 is really very strong on the wing ; and one was known to have flown from 

 New Guinea to a small island one hundred miles to the north, with no 

 intervening land. 



The mountain-witch, says Mr. Gosse, is the most beautiful bird, the 

 long-tailed humming-bird excepted, in the island of Jamaica. Gray, 

 brown, buff, bluish gray, pale crimson, brassy green, dark red, the richest 

 purple, deep sea-green, black, bistre-chestnut, are all represented in its 

 plumage. It is of a retiring disposition, flying but poorly, and making its 

 home in the deepest woods on the mountains. " Its coo consists of two 

 loud notes, the first short and sharp, the second protracted and descending 

 with a mournful cadence. At a distance its first note is inaudible, and the 

 second reiterated at measured intervals sounds like the groaning of a 

 dying man. These moans, heard in the most recluse and solemn glens, 

 while the bird is rarely seen, have probably given it the name of mountain- 

 witch." A closely related bird of the same island is the partridge-dove, 

 which like the mountain-witch eats the seeds of the castor-bean, and the 

 physic-nut among other things. 



A third species from Jamaica is the white-belly. It lives in the higher 

 parts of the island, " where its loud and plaintive cooing makes the woods 

 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 the imagination. The beautiful white-belly complains all 

 day, in the sunshine as well as the storm, ' Rain-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 extremity of 

 suffering." It is a very gentle species, even when first caught ; its food is 

 the physic-nut, and the seeds of the orange and mango. The pea-dove 

 says ' Sary-coat-true-blue ' ; while the white-wing has a still larger vocabu- 

 lary. At times it says ' two bits for two,' or ' what's that to you ' ; but at 

 other times the sentence runs (according to negro interpretation), k Since 

 poor Gilpice die, cow-head spoil,' the word { spoil ' j)rolonged and falling 

 in tone, as if the spoiling of the cow-head were a most deplorable cir- 

 cumstance. 



There are some twenty-five or thirty species of turtle-doves in the 

 Old World, one of which has attained considerable celebrity. It is a 

 meek species, utterly lacking in spirit, and displaying the greatest affection 

 for its mate. While many of the pigeons display some spirit, this one has 

 been universally recognized as the personification of peace. 



