owee
whale find 'em."

"How do you know that? Ye're ravin', Saloo."

"No lavin, Multa. You heal lass night the malee? All night longee he
cly wail."

"Hear the malee. What's that?"

"Biggee fowl like tulkey. Saloo heal him. Make moan likee man go die."

"Och, thair was that, thrue enough. I heerd something scramin' all the
night. I thought it might be a banshee, if thair is that crayther in
this counthry. A bird, you say? What of that? Its squalling won't
give us any iggs, nor lade to its nest nayther."

"Ness not belly fal way. Malee make ness in sand close to sea-shole.
Mollow mornin' I go lookee, maybe findee."

All throughout the previous night they had heard a voice resounding
along the shore in loud, plaintive wailings, and Captain Redwood had
remarked its being a strange note to him, never having heard the like
before. He believed the cries to come from some species of sea-fowl
that frequented the coast, but did not think of the probability of their
nests being close at hand. As day broke he had looked out for them in
hopes of getting a shot. Even had they been gulls, he would have been
glad of one or two for breakfast. But there were no birds in sight, not
even gulls.

Saloo now told them that the screams heard during the night did not come
from sea-fowl, but from birds of a very different kind, that had their
home in the forest, and only came to the sea-coast during their season
of breeding; that their presence was for this purpose, and therefore
denoted the proximity of their nests.

While they were yet speaking on the subject, their eyes were suddenly
attracted to a number of the very birds about which they were in
converse. There was quite a flock of them--nearly fifty in all. They
were not roosted upon the trees, nor flying through the air, but
stepping along the sandy beach with a sedate yet stately tread, just
like barn-door fowl on their march toward a field of freshly-sown grain,
here and there stooping to pick up some stray seed. They were about the
size of Cochin-Chinas, and from their flecked plumage of glossy black
and rose-tinted white colour, as well as from having a combed or
helmeted head, and carrying their tails upright, they bore a very
striking resemblance to a flock of common hens.

They, in fact, belonged to an order of birds closely allied to the
gallinaceous tribe, and representing it on the continent of Australia as
also in several of the Austro-Malayan i