of which it was moored, while two of the guard busied themselves in
spreading refreshments beneath the awning in a business-like way, which
suggested that they had been used to such tasks before.

"Rather hot for a long walk," said Frank, when the meal was finished;
"but I don't mind, if you don't."

Murray smiled with the calm contempt for heat usually displayed by an
Englishman, took his gun and stepped ashore, followed by the boys, to
find that half a dozen men armed with spears followed them, one stepping
forward to act as guide, but after a few words from Frank, going back to
his place with the rest.

"Now then," he said, "what's it to be--birds or beasts?"

"Birds to-day," replied Murray.

"There you go then--a big one," cried the lad, as with a rushing, heavy
beating sound of its wings, a great bird flow directly over their heads,
uttering a hoarse cry, and with its huge curved bill bearing a curious,
nearly square, excrescence on the top, plainly seen as the bird
approached.

"Why didn't you shoot?" cried Frank, as the bird went off unscathed.
"Why, I believe, I could have hit that."

"For the simple reason that I did not want to encumber myself with a
bird I have had before."

"Oh, I see. There are lots of those about here, and I've found their
nests."

"What sort of a nest is it?" asked Ned. "Anything like a magpie's?"

"No!" cried Frank; "not a bit. Big as they are, they build like a
tomtit does, right in a hollow tree, but the one I saw had only laid one
egg, and a tomtit lays lots. It was in the trunk of a great worm-eaten
tree, and the hen bird was shut in, for the cock had filled the
entrance-hole with clay, all but a bit big enough for the hen to put out
her beak to be fed. What's that?"

Murray had fired and brought down a gaily-feathered bird, green,
scarlet, and orange, and with a sharp wedge-shaped beak fringed with
sharp bristles.

"A barbet," said Murray, giving the bird to one of the men to carry;
"but like your hornbill, too common to be worth preserving."

Other birds fell to Murray's gun as they went on. A trogon was the
next, a thickly-feathered soft-looking bird, yoke-toed like a cuckoo,
and bearing great resemblance in shape to the nightjar of the English
woods, but wonderfully different in plumage; for, whereas the latter is
of a soft blending of greys and browns, like the wings of some woodland
moths, this trogon's back was of a cinnamon brown, and its breast of a
l