DOVES. 173 



Besides all these, which, in various measure, per- 

 form their parts in the music of our woods, and not 

 to mention the multitudes of Warblers, and Fly- 

 catchers, and Finches, whose notes, insignificant in 

 themselves, help to swell and vary the general 

 harmony, — there is another series of voices that 

 must by no means be overlooked in an enumeration 

 of our woodland music, — the plaintive cooings of 

 our numerous wild Doves. In the recesses of the 

 mountain-forests the silence is broken by the loud 

 hollow calls of the Ring-tail and Blue 'Pigeon {Columba 

 Carihbea and riifina), and by the mournful cadences 

 of the lustrous Mountain Witch {Geotrygon syl- 

 vatica). The woods, that densely clothe the inferior 

 summits, and sheet the sides of the sloping hills, re- 

 sound with the energetic coo of the Baldpate {Col. 

 leucocephala), the short reiterated moans of the 

 Partridge Dove {Geotrygon mo7itana), the querulous 

 call of the Ground Dove [Chamcepelia lidsserina), and 

 the tender, melancholy, sobbing fall of the gentle 

 Whitebelly [Peristera Jamaicerisis). 



But, as it is in the lowland plains and cultivated 



April. I had attempted to write down some of the very marked 

 ecstatic cadences of this song, long before I met with Nuttall's 

 description of it; and I had, like him, resolved the sounds into 

 a-vree-u, and a-vilhia, frequently repeated. My spelling, however, 

 differs from his, but we work out the same sounds. These are a part 

 of his song only ; the intermediate passages are surpassingly sweet, 

 and all the tones, though clear, are mellow, and flute-like, and ex- 

 ceedingly harmonious ; — and sustained with an agreeable flow of 

 melody. The bird on the morning of the 10th, sang for a full half 

 hour in the cluster of trees within the ravine." — Letter from Mr. Hill, 

 Feb. 20th, 1847. 



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