on't keep it behind
you like that. Let's see what it's like. Come, don't be so childish."

"All right, sir," said Smith, giving his companion a wink, and then with
a flourish he swung round a shapely-looking Pitta--a hen-bird of very
sober plumage--and banged it down on the head of the cask.

"Well, upon my word," cried Oliver, indignantly. "Here have you two
chaps kept me all this time spinning a miserable yarn about a bird that
I began to hope was a fine specimen worth having, and then you bring out
this!"

"Yes, sir, won't it do?" said Smith, winking at Wriggs once more.

"There, be off with you, and take the rubbishing thing away," cried
Oliver, wrathfully. "All your cock and bull story about that."

"Yes, sir," cried Smith, with a peculiar chuckle and a wink at Wriggs;
"but that there warn't the one."

As he spoke, Smith very carefully and slowly brought his hand round
again, holding a bird in the most perfect plumage suspended by a thin
ring of brass wire, which had been thrust through the nostrils, and
Oliver uttered a cry of joy.

"Ahoy, Drew! Panton! come here, quick!"

"What's up?" came from the deck, and as there was the hurried sound of
feet, the two sailors nodded and winked and gave each his leg a slap.

"What is it?" cried Panton, eagerly, as he ran to where his brother
naturalist stood gloating over his treasure.

"A gem! A gem!" cried Oliver.

"Then, that's in my way, not yours," said Panton. "My word, what a
beauty! That's quite fresh."

"To me, but I know what it is. The Golden Paradise bird. Isn't it
exquisite? Look at its colours and the crest."

"That's what took my attention first of all," said Drew, who had now
joined them, and they all three gloated over the wonderful specimen
which glowed with intense colours. There were no long loose flowing
buff plume; for the bird was short and compact, its principal decoration
being six oval feathers at the end of as many thin wire-like pens, three
growing crest-like out of each side of its head. The whole of its
throat and breast were covered with broad scale-like feathers of
brilliant metallic golden hue, looking in the sunshine like the dazzling
throat of a humming bird vastly magnified; while, seen in different
lights, these golden scales changed in hue like the plumes of a peacock,
becoming purple or green. A pure satiny white patch glistened
conspicuously on the front of the head, before the place whence the six
cresting