ember," the Frenchman
said, fondling one of his screaming _proteges_. "These are a few of my
subjects. But I do not keep them for mere curiosity. Each of them is the
Soul of the tribe to which it belongs. This, for example--my Cluseret--is
the Soul of all the gray parrots; that that you see yonder--Badinguet,
I call him--is the Soul of the hawks; this, my Mimi, is the Soul of the
little yellow-crested kingfisher. My task as King of the Birds is to keep
a representative of each of these always on hand; in which endeavor I
am faithfully aided by the whole population of the island, who bring me
eggs and nests and young birds in abundance. If the Soul of the little
yellow kingfisher now were to die, without a successor being found ready
at once to receive and embody it, then the whole race of little yellow
kingfishers would vanish altogether; and if I myself, the King of the
Birds, who am, as it were, the Soul and life of all of them, were to die
without a successor being at hand to receive my spirit, then all the race
of birds, with one accord, would become extinct forthwith and forever."

He moved among his pets easily, like a king among his subjects. Most of
them seemed to know him and love his presence. Presently, he came to one
very old parrot, quite different from any Felix had ever seen on any
trees in the island; it was a parrot with a black crest and a red mark on
its throat, half blind with age, and tottering on its pedestal. This
solemn old bird sat apart from all the others, nodding its head
oracularly in the sunlight, and blinking now and again with its white
eyelids in a curious senile fashion.

The Frenchman turned to Felix with an air of profound mystery. "This
bird," he said, solemnly stroking its head with his hand, while the
parrot turned round to him and bit at his finger with half-doddering
affection--"this bird is the oldest of all my birds---is it not so,
Methuselah?--and illustrates well in one of its aspects the superstition
of these people. Yes, my friend, you are the last of a kind now otherwise
extinct, are you not, _mon vieux?_ No, no, there--gently! Once upon a
time, the natives tell me, dozens of these parrots existed in the island;
they flocked among the trees, and were held very sacred; but they were
hard to catch and difficult to keep, and the Kings of the Birds, my
predecessors, failed to secure an heir and coadjutor to this one. So as
the Soul of the species, which you see here before you