s I saw
how pleased Uncle Joe was.

"You can stuff birds, then, sir?" I said, after a pause, during which
our visitor made himself very busy examining everything I had.

"Well, yes, Nat, after a fashion. I'm not clever at it, for I never
practise mounting. I can make skins."

"Make skins, sir?"

"Yes, my boy. Don't you see that when I am in some wild place shooting
and collecting, every scrap of luggage becomes a burden."

"Yes, sir; of course," I said, nodding my head sagely, "especially if
the roads are not good."

"Roads, my boy," he said laughing; "the rivers and streams are the only
roads in such places as I travel through. Then, of course, I can't use
wires and tow to distend my birds, so we make what we call skins. That
is to say, after preparing the skin, all that is done is to tie the long
bones together, and fill the bird out with some kind of wild cotton,
press the head back on the body by means of a tiny paper cone or
sugar-paper, put a band round the wings, and dry the skin in the sun."

"Yes, I know, sir," I cried eagerly; "and you pin the paper round the
bird with a tiny bamboo skewer, and put another piece of bamboo through
from head to tail."

"Why, how do you know?" he said wonderingly.

"Oh! Nat knows a deal," said Uncle Joe, chuckling. "We're not such
stupid people as you think, Dick, even if we do stay at home."

"I've got a skin or two, sir," I said, "and they were made like that."

As I spoke I took the two skins out of an old cigar-box.

"Oh! I see," he said, as he took them very gently and smoothed their
feathers with the greatest care. "Where did you get these, Nat?"

"I bought them with my pocket-money in Oxford Street, sir," I said, as
Uncle Joe, who had not before seen them, leaned forward.

"And do you know what they are, my boy?" said our visitor.

"No, sir; I have no books with pictures of them in, and the man who sold
them to me did not know. Can you tell me, sir?"

"Yes, Nat, I think so," he said quietly. "This pretty dark bird with
the black and white and crimson plumage is the rain-bird--the
blue-billed gaper; and this softly-feathered fellow with the bristles at
the side of his bill is a trogon."

"A trogon, sir?"

"Yes, Nat, a trogon; and these little bamboo skewers tell me directly
that the birds came from somewhere in the East."

I looked at him wonderingly.

"Yes, Nat," he continued, "from the East, where the bamboo is used for
endless purpose