CAPE SAN ANTONIO 169 



hunters and wreckers and they can read and write. 

 The usual Cuban sense of hospitality was not 

 lacking in this remote place and we were served 

 coffee and made welcome. In a cage hanging 

 from the roof of the porch were two native wild 

 doves (the white-crowned pigeon, Columba leuco- 

 cephala L.), gentle lovable creatures that cooed 

 softly. The old man brought out some corn and 

 told us to feed them from our lips, and these wild 

 creatures caressed us and begged for a return of 

 the compliment. Our hearts went out to those 

 birds. Such admiration had the usual result. To 

 our embarrassment, the doves were then and there 

 presented to us, and no refusal of the gift would be 

 considered nor price accepted. If the women of the 

 family, who doubtless loved them, ever winced at 

 the parting, they gave no sign. These doves are now 

 domiciled in the Zoological Park at Washington. 

 The young man who had brought us to the 

 house of his grandfather now considered himself 

 our guide and friend. He spoke of a sand beach 

 just beyond and we stampeded for it, floundering 

 some two hundred yards through a morass and 

 then emerging upon just such a stretch of sand 

 beach as we hoped from the first to encounter. 



