As Ebo reached the tree he turned back to us laughing and pointing with
his spear, and then signed to us to come, though even when we were close
up to him I could see nothing but a tiny hole in the trunk of the great
tree.
"It can't be a nest, uncle," I said, "because it is not big enough.
Perhaps it is a wild bees' hive."
"I don't know yet," said my uncle. "I'm like you, Nat, a little bit
puzzled. If it were not so small I should say it was a nest from the
way that great hornbill keeps flapping about and screeching."
"Shall I shoot it, uncle?" I said eagerly.
"Well, no, Nat, I hardly like to do that. If it is as I think, it would
be too cruel, for we should be starving the young, and it will be easy
to get a specimen of a hornbill if we want one, though really it is such
a common bird that it is hardly worth carriage as a skin."
Just then, to show us, Ebo began to poke at the hole with the point of
his spear, and we saw the point of a bill suddenly pop out and dart in
again, while the great hornbill shrieked and shouted, for I can call it
nothing else, so queerly sounded its voice.
"Why, it can't be the hornbill's nest, uncle!" I said. "Look how small
it is."
"Yes, it is small, but it is the hornbill's nest after all," said my
uncle, as Ebo kept on poking at the hole and bringing down pieces of
what seemed to be clay. Then, seeing how interested we were, he took
off his basket, lay down his spear, and taking a hatchet from his
waistband cut a few nicks for his toes, and began to climb up, the big
hornbill screeching horribly the while, till Ebo was level with the
hole, from out of which the end of a bill kept on peeping.
Then the hornbill flew off and Ebo began to chop away a large quantity
of dry clay till quite a large hole was opened, showing the original way
into the hollow tree; and now, after a great deal of hoarse shrieking
the black got hold of the great bird that was inside, having quite a
fight before he could drag it out by the legs, and then dropping with
it, flapping its great wings, to the ground.
"Undoubtedly the female hornbill," said my uncle. "How singular! The
male bird must have plastered her up there and fed her while she has
been sitting. That was what we saw, Nat."
"Then there must be eggs, uncle," I cried, with my old bird-nesting
propensities coming to the front.
But Ebo was already up the tree again as soon as he had rid himself of
the great screaming bird, and in place of bringing down any eggs he
leaped back to the earth with a young hornbill, as curious a creature as
it is possible to imagine.
It was like a clear leather bag or bladder full of something warm and
soft, and with the most comical head, legs, and wings, a good-sized soft
beak, a few blue stumps of feathers to represent the tail, and nothing
else. It was, so to speak, a horribly naked skin of soft jelly with
staring eyes, and it kept on gaping helplessly for more food, when it
was evidently now as full as could be.
"Are there more birds?" said Uncle Dick pointing to the hole; but Ebo
shook his head, running up, thrusting in his hand, and coming down
again.
"Very curious, Nat," said my uncle. "The male bird evidently shuts his
wife up after she has laid an egg, to protect her from other birds and
perhaps monkeys till she has hatched, and then he goes on feeding her
and her young one."
"And well too, uncle; he is as fat as butter."
"Feeding both well till the young one is fit to fly."
"Which won't be yet, uncle, for he hasn't a feather."
"No, my boy. Well, what shall we do with them?" said my uncle, still
holding the screeching mother, while I nursed the soft warm bird baby,
her daughter or son.
"Let's put the little--no, I mean the big one back, uncle," I said,
laughing.
"Just what I was thinking. Climb up and do it."
I easily climbed to the nest and was glad to get the young bird in again
without cracking its skin, which seemed so tender; and no sooner had I
rolled it softly in and climbed down than my uncle let the mother go,
and so strong was her love of her young that she immediately flew to the
hole and crept in, croaking and screaming in an uneasy, angry way, as if
she was scolding us for interfering with her little one, while from a
distance amongst the trees the cock bird kept on answering her with the
noisiest and most discordant cries.
Every now and then it came into sight, flying heavily across the
openings between the trees, its great cream-coloured, clumsy-looking
bill shining and looking bright in the sun, while the cries it uttered
tempted one to put one's fingers into one's ears.
And all the time the hen bird inside the tree kept answering it
peevishly, as much as to say, Look here: what a shame it is! Why don't
you come and drive these people away?
"This is one of the most singular facts in natural history that I have
met with," said Uncle Dick, who was still gazing curiously up at the
tree and watching the female hornbill's head as she kept shuffling
herself about uneasily, and seemed to object to so much light.
"I think I know what it is, uncle," I said, laughing.
"Do you, Nat," he replied. "Well, you are cleverer than I am if you do
know. Well, why is it?"
"The hen hornbill must be like Uncle Joe's little bantam, who never
would sit till she was shut up in the dark, and that's why Mr Hornbill
fastened up his wife."
My uncle laughed, and then, to Ebo's great delight, for he had been
fidgeting about and wondering why it was that we stopped so long, we
continued our journey in search of the birds of paradise, whose cries
could be heard at a distance every now and then.
But though we kept on following the sounds we seemed to get no nearer,
and to make matters worse, so as not to scare them uncle said it would
be better not to fire, with the consequence that we missed shooting some
very beautiful birds that flitted from tree to tree.
"We must give up the birds of paradise to-day, Nat," said my uncle at
last. "I see it is of no use to follow them; they are too shy."
"Then how are we to get any?" I said in a disappointed tone; for we had
been walking for some hours now and I was tired.
"Lie in wait for them, Nat," he replied smiling. "But come, we'll try
and shoot a few birds for food now and have a good dinner. You will
feel all the more ready then for a fresh walk."
By means of a little pantomime we made Ebo understand what we wanted,
and in a very little while he had taken us to where the great pigeons
thronged the trees, many being below feeding on a kind of nut which had
fallen in great profusion from a lofty kind of palm.
If we had wanted a hundred times as many of the big pigeons we could
easily have shot them, they were so little used to attack; but we only
brought down a sufficiency for our present wants, and as soon as Ebo
understood that these birds were not to be skinned but plucked for
eating, he quickly had a good fire blazing and worked away stripping the
feathers off so that they dropped on the fire and were consumed.
The plumage was so beautiful that it seemed to be like so much wanton
destruction to throw it away, and I could not help thinking what delight
it would have given me before I had seen Uncle Dick's collection, to
have been the possessor of one of these noble birds. But as my uncle
very reasonably said, we should have required a little army of porters
to carry our chests, and then a whole vessel to take them home, if we
were to preserve every specimen we shot. We could only save the finest
specimens; the rest must go for food; and of course we would only, after
we had obtained a sufficiency of a particular kind, shoot those that we
required for the table.
Ebo was invaluable in preparing fires and food for cooking, and upon
this occasion, as he placed the birds on sticks close to the hot blaze,
I watched him with no little interest, longing as I did to begin the
feast.
But birds take time to cook, and instead of watching impatiently for
them to be ready, I saw that Uncle Dick had taken his gun down a narrow
little glade between two rows of trees growing so regularly that they
seemed to have been planted by a gardener.
But no gardener had ever worked here, and as I overtook my uncle he
began to talk of how singular it was that so beautiful a place should be
without inhabitants.
"The soil must be rich, Nat, to produce such glorious trees and shrubs.
Look at the beauty of what flowers there are, and the herbage, Nat. The
place is a perfect paradise."
"And do you feel sure, uncle, that there are no savages here?"
"None but ourselves, Nat," said my uncle, laughing.
"Well, but we are not savages, uncle," I said.
"That is a matter of opinion, my boy. I'm afraid the birds here, if
they can think about such things, would be very much disposed to look
upon us as savages for intruding upon their beautiful domain to shoot
one here and one there for our own selfish purposes."
"Oh! but birds can't think, uncle," I said.
"How do you know?"
Well, of course I did not know, and could produce no argument in support
of my case. So I looked up at him at last in a puzzled way and saw that
he was smiling.
"You can't answer that question, Nat," he said. "It is one of the
matters that science sees no way of compassing. Still, I feel certain
that birds have a good deal of sense."
"But you don't think they can talk to one another, do you, uncle?"
"No, it cannot be called talking; but they have certain ways of
communicating one with the other, as anyone who has taken notice of
domestic fowls can see. What is more familiar than the old hen's cry to
her chickens when she has found something eatable? and then there is the
curious call uttered by all fowls when any large bird that they think is
a bird of prey flies over them."
"Oh! yes, I've heard that, uncle," I said.
"I remember an old hen uttering that peculiar warning note one day in a
field, Nat, and immediately every chicken feeding near hurried off under
the hedges and trees, or thrust their heads into tufts of grass to hide
themselves from the hawk."
"That seems to show, uncle, that they do understand."
"Yes, they certainly comprehend a certain number of cries, and it is a
sort of natural language that they have learned for their preservation."
"I know too about the chickens, uncle," I said. "Sometimes they go
about uttering a little soft twittering noise as if they were happy and
contented; but if they lose sight of their mother they pipe and cry and
stand on their toes, staring about them as if they were in the greatest
of trouble."
"I think I can tell you another curious little thing about fowls too,
and their way of communicating one with the other. Many years ago, Nat,
I had a fancy for keeping some very large fine Dorking fowls, and very
interesting I found it letting the hens sit and then taking care of
their chickens."
"But how is it, uncle," I said, interrupting him, "that a tiny, tender
chicken can so easily chip a hole in an egg-shell, as they do when they
are nearly ready to come out?"
"Because, for one reason, the egg-shell has become very brittle, and all
the glutinous, adhesive matter has dried away from the lime; the other
reason is, that the pressure of the bird's beak alone is sufficient to
do it, because the pressure comes from within. There is a wonderful
strength in an egg, Nat, if the pressure is from without; it will bear
enormous weight from without, for one particle supports another, and in
reason the pressure adds to the strength. The slightest touch, however,
is sufficient to break a way out from within. I'll be bound to say you
have often hammered an egg with a spoon and been surprised to find how
hard it is."
"Yes, uncle, often," I said.
"Well, but to go on with my story, Nat. One day a favourite hen had
eleven beautiful little yellow downy chickens, and for the fun of the
thing I took one soft little thing out of the nest and carried it into
the yard, where the great cock was strutting about with his
sickle-feathered green tail glistening in the sun, and, putting down the
tiny yellow ball of down, I drew back, calling the old cock the while.
"He ran up, thinking it was something to eat; but as soon as he reached
the helpless little chick he stopped short, bent his head down, looked
at it first with one eye, then with the other, and seemed lost in
meditation.
"`Come, papa,' I said, `what do you think of your little one?'
"Still he kept on staring intently at the little thing till it began to
cry `_Peek, peek, peek_' in a most dismal tone, for it was very cold,
and then the old cock, who had been looking very important and big,
suddenly began to cry `_Took, took, took_', just like a hen, and softly
crouched down, spreading his wings a little for the chick to creep under
him and get warm, and no doubt he would have taken care of that chicken
and brought it up if I had not taken it back to the hen.
"But look! we are talking about barn-door fowls and losing chances to
get lovely specimens of foreign birds and--what's that?"
For just then a shrill wild call rang down the lovely glade, and I
thought that Uncle Dick was wrong, and savages were near.