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 tha