70 
IN THE HEART OF THE FOREST. 
tender sob-like strain of the gentle wliite-belly, and the calls of the 
ground dove and the partridge dove. 
While these birds seek the woodlands, there are others which 
prefer the cultivated plains, the low-lying fields, and the neighbour- 
hood of man. Mr. Gosse speaks of the white-wing and the pea dove 
as essentially "lowland birds." Not that their voices are heard 
immediately around the homestead. It is noticeable that prudence 
keeps them silent when they venture into the open pasture in search 
of food ; but from the adjacent groves and the mazes of the mangrove- 
swamps their loud yet tender cry comes pleasantly upon the ear. 
The pea dove's voice has an exquisite tenderness in it ; especially in 
the evening, when the warm azure of the sky is deepening into the 
sapphire glow of night, and the stars come forth to keep their silent 
vigil, and a soft hush prevails over the face of nature. With the 
morning begins the louder and more energetic voice of the white-wing; 
though, says our authority, each season brings the notes of both birds, 
respectively characteristic of the quietude of the late and early houi-s. 
" Nec tamen interea raucse palumbes, 
Nec gemere aeria cessabit turtur ab ulmo.'' — ViKGIL. 
THE WEST INDIAN FOREST. 
It is well that we should endeavour to place before the reader a 
picture of the wooded scenes where so many of the beautiful birds of 
the Antilles choose their habitat. If acquainted only with the sober 
groves of England, or the pine-forests of the North, he can form no 
idea of the profusion, the superabundant wealth, of the tropical forest, 
where Nature seems to revel in crowding new forms one upon another. 
Charles Kingsley declares that his first feeling on entering the high 
woods of Trinidad was " helplessness, confusion, awe, — all but teiTor." 
Without the aid of a compass, or the landmark afforded by some 
opening to or from which he can look, a stranger must be lost in the 
first ten minutes ; so infinite is the variety. The trees and creepers 
close round him so closely, and inextricably, and confusedly, that he 
cannot discover any way out of them, either backward or forward. 
He wanders on aimlessly, helplessly, with a vague sense of " innumer- 
