him, and seizing
him by the neck, quickly dragged him to the shore.

"It is a magnificent hornbill!" exclaimed our uncle--"_Buceros
bicornis_."

Merlin had killed the bird in bringing it on shore, and it now lay
stretched out before us. My uncle eagerly went forward to the tree, and
looking up about fifteen feet from the ground, we saw a small hole
surrounded by mud. Directly afterwards, out came the white end of a
beak, which seemed to gape as if expecting to have some food put into
it. We were silent for an instant, and then heard the harsh croaking of
a bird, which seemed to come from the interior of the tree. How to get
at it, however, was the question.

"We will soon be up there," said Tarbox. "I have seen the way the black
fellows get up a tree, and I think we can do the same."

He soon cut down some bamboos, which, cutting into pieces about a foot
and a half in length, he drove into the tree, we all assisting him. He
then secured some upright bamboos to the pieces which had thus been
stuck in one above another. As soon as he had stuck them in as high as
he could reach, he mounted on the first, and then put in some more above
his head, and thus in a very short time got up to a level with the hole.

"I have no fancy, though, for having my eyes picked out, which they
might very quickly be if the creature inside has got as big a beak as
the one you killed, sir," he observed.

He accordingly got somewhat higher up. He then with his axe began to
knock away the mud, and in a short time cleared out a large hole, when
not only the beak but the head of a bird similar to the one which had
been killed was poked out.

Dick seized it by the neck in spite of its furious struggles, and giving
it a swing, threw it down to the ground, where the rest of us pounced
upon it, when it commenced uttering the most tremendously loud, hoarse
screaming I ever heard.

"There is something else in the nest, though!" he exclaimed; and putting
in his hand he drew out an extraordinary little lump of vitality, which,
however, was evidently a young bird. "I will bring it down to its
mother," he said; "for if I threw it, the poor little creature would be
killed."

Holding the creature in one hand with as much care as if it had been a
young child, he descended with the other. It was a bird as large as a
pigeon, but without a single feather on any part of its body. It was
wonderfully plump and soft, with a skin almost transparen