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.

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE.

LOST IN THE FOREST.

There was no occasion for alarm, the cry only coming from Ebo, who, as
soon as he saw us, began making frantic signs to us to come.

"That means the pigeons are cooked, Nat," said my uncle, laughing; and
this was the case, for, as soon as he saw us, the black came running up
gesticulating and pointing behind him in the direction of the fire,
where the delicious birds were waiting for us to eat.

Those were delightful meals that we had out in the shade of some grand
wide-spreading tree, in whose branches every now and then a parrot would
come shrieking, to be followed by others; and as we ate our dinner so
would they busily find and eat theirs, hanging by their legs, perhaps
head downwards, or perching on one leg and using the other with its soft
clasping yoke toes like a hand to convey the food towards its beak.

I never felt tired of watching the parrots and paroquets, for besides
their beauty of plumage of all kinds of soft tints of green, brightened
with orange and scarlet and blue, they always looked such plump and
delicately feathered birds. I have seen hundreds of them stuffe