said, smiling. "Come, my boy, you
must throw aside prejudices."

"Well, you see, uncle, they have got such hooked beaks," I said, in a
helpless sort of way.

"Ha! ha! ha!" he laughed. "Why, what a reason, Nat! I might as well
say I would not eat snipe, or woodcock, because it has such a long
straight beak. Turn your skewer, Nat. They are beginning to smell
maddeningly nice. They're as fat as butter. Nothing like a walk such
as ours to give you an appetite. There, take the big tin and go and
fill it with Adam's ale."

I ran to the rock pool and filled the tin with the cool clear water, and
came back to the fire.

"They'll soon be done, Nat," said my uncle. "Yes, my boy, I should eat
parrots, and shall eat a good many, I hope. Why, look here, Nat, what
do parrots eat?"

"Sop and seed and sugar," I said.

"Yes, when they are shut up in a cage at home, Nat; but fruit, my boy,
in their native state. There, you may take that as a rule, that all
birds that live on seed or fruit are good for food."

"And those that live on prey, uncle, are bad," I said.

"Well, no; that won't do, Nat. Parrots are delicious. I've eaten
dozens. And so are some birds that live on small prey--ducks and geese,
for instance, eat a great many live things; and the birds that live on
insects are, some of them, very good. I think we may say birds of light
diet are all good, and draw the line at all carrion or raptorial birds.
I should not like to eat hawk, owl, or anything of the crow family; but
there is no knowing, Nat, what we might do if half-starved, and that's
what I am now. Nat, my boy, the birds are done. Now for a glorious
feast! I'm sure I shall pick the bones of my two."

"And I'm sure I shall, uncle. I was never so hungry in my life."

"Then now to begin, my boy; give me that tin plate and say grace, if we
are in the wilds. What's become of all the savages?"

"Oh, uncle!" I cried, "here comes our guide. He wasn't offended."

"Thunder!" cried Uncle Dick, with a comical look of disgust; "he has
come back to dinner."

"Yes, uncle," I groaned, as I looked at the pigeons; "and he has brought
two great hungry fellows with him."

"Fetch the guns, Nat," cried my uncle in comical wrath; "let's fight in
defence of our prey. No, don't; we must bribe them with biscuits to
go."

Uncle Dick looked at me in a miserably resigned way, and it all seemed
so droll that these blacks should come up just as we were preparin