male hornbill," said my uncle. "How singular! The
male bird must have plastered her up there and fed her while she has
been sitting. That was what we saw, Nat."

"Then there must be eggs, uncle," I cried, with my old bird-nesting
propensities coming to the front.

But Ebo was already up the tree again as soon as he had rid himself of
the great screaming bird, and in place of bringing down any eggs he
leaped back to the earth with a young hornbill, as curious a creature as
it is possible to imagine.

It was like a clear leather bag or bladder full of something warm and
soft, and with the most comical head, legs, and wings, a good-sized soft
beak, a few blue stumps of feathers to represent the tail, and nothing
else. It was, so to speak, a horribly naked skin of soft jelly with
staring eyes, and it kept on gaping helplessly for more food, when it
was evidently now as full as could be.

"Are there more birds?" said Uncle Dick pointing to the hole; but Ebo
shook his head, running up, thrusting in his hand, and coming down
again.

"Very curious, Nat," said my uncle. "The male bird evidently shuts his
wife up after she has laid an egg, to protect her from other birds and
perhaps monkeys till she has hatched, and then he goes on feeding her
and her young one."

"And well too, uncle; he is as fat as butter."

"Feeding both well till the young one is fit to fly."

"Which won't be yet, uncle, for he hasn't a feather."

"No, my boy. Well, what shall we do with them?" said my uncle, still
holding the screeching mother, while I nursed the soft warm bird baby,
her daughter or son.

"Let's put the little--no, I mean the big one back, uncle," I said,
laughing.

"Just what I was thinking. Climb up and do it."

I easily climbed to the nest and was glad to get the young bird in again
without cracking its skin, which seemed so tender; and no sooner had I
rolled it softly in and climbed down than my uncle let the mother go,
and so strong was her love of her young that she immediately flew to the
hole and crept in, croaking and screaming in an uneasy, angry way, as if
she was scolding us for interfering with her little one, while from a
distance amongst the trees the cock bird kept on answering her with the
noisiest and most discordant cries.

Every now and then it came into sight, flying heavily across the
openings between the trees, its great cream-coloured, clumsy-looking
bill shining and looking bright in the sun,