lying slowly and noiselessly, and our hunter
told us that a very slight wound would kill them.

"See here, Walter and Oliver; observe its powerful beak. This bird
lives upon the kernel of the kanary-nut. We passed several of those
lofty trees as we came along. This bill is evidently formed for the
purpose of eating this kanary-nut, which no other bird can do.
By-the-by, I picked up one. Here it is. See! it is so hard that a
heavy hammer alone can crack it."

The outside of the nut Mr Hooker showed us was quite smooth, and of a
somewhat triangular shape.

"However, the birds are hungry, and we will try and catch flight of one
of our black friends taking his breakfast, and see how he manages."

We quickly discussed our breakfast, and immediately afterwards set off
in search of a kanary-tree. On one of the lower branches we were
fortunate enough to see a black cockatoo perched. He had just taken one
of the nuts end-ways into his bill, where he kept it firm by the
pressure of the tongue. He then cut a transverse notch, so Mr Hooker
declared, by the lateral sawing motion of the lower mandible. He next
took hold of the nut by his foot, and biting off a piece of a
neighbouring leaf, retained it in the deep notch of the upper mandible.
Again seizing the nut, which was prevented from slipping by the elastic
tissue of the leaf, he fixed the edge of the lower mandible in the
notch, and by a powerful nip broke off a piece of the shell. Once more
taking it in his claws, he inserted the very long and sharp point of his
bill and picked out the kernel, which he seized hold of, morsel by
morsel, with his curiously formed, extensible tongue. As no other bird
in existence can compete with him in eating these nuts, he has always an
abundance of food. Mr Hooker called this species the _Microglossum
aterrimum_.

Soon afterwards, a native brought us a king-fisher with an enormously
long tail, such as no other king-fisher possesses. It was the
racket-tailed king-fisher. It had been caught sleeping in the hollow of
the rocky banks of a neighbouring stream. It had a red bill, and Mr
Hooker observed that he doubted whether it lived upon fish, for, from
the earth clinging to its beak, he suspected rather that it preys on
insects and minute shells which it picks up in the forests. Its shape
was very graceful, the plumage being of a brilliant blue and white.

We caught also another cuscus, which Mr Hooker showed us was of the