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 
Caribhea and rufind)^ and by the mournful cadences 
of the lustrous Mountain Witch {Geotrygon syl- 
vaticd). 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. 
leucocepJiala), the short reiterated moans of the 
Partridge Dove {Geotrygon montana), the querulous 
call of the Ground Dove {Chamcepelia passerina), and 
the tender, melancholy, sobbing fall of the gentle 
Whitebelly {Peristera Jamaicensis). 
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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