ly. "I think not. If there be I should
like a specimen; it would be an exciting display for the learned
bird-lovers in London to gaze at. Don't you see, my boy, he furnished
the specimen he saw with the tail plumage of three different varieties
of the macaw--the green the blue, and the red. Pete's eyes played
tricks with him that time. I wish he would see the long floating
feathers of a quetzal flashing its green and gold and purple in the
sunshine."

"So do I, uncle," I replied. "I wish we could find and shoot dozens of
them, but I don't long for the task of skinning them; they are so
delicate and likely to tear."

"Like all the birds related to the cuckoos," said my uncle; "but we were
very successful over this. By the way, Pete is getting very handy in
that way. We must trust him with some of the commoner things, for it
seems as if after all we shall have to fill up with the best of the
less-known birds."

"Oh, no," I said, as I carefully smoothed down the loose silky plumage
of our solitary specimen. "We're tired now. When we have had a good
wash and our tea-dinner we shall feel different."

I carefully put away the trogon, and crossed to where Pete was busy
getting the kettle to boil, and making other preparations for our
evening meal. No light task, for his fire troubled him a good deal, and
he began about it at once.

"What I want, Master Nat," he said, "is some regular good stiff clay to
make up into bricks. They'd bake hard. As for these stones I build up
a fireplace and oven with, some go bang and fly off in splinters, and
the other sort moulders all away into dust--regular lime, you know, that
fizzles and cisses when it's cold and you pour water over it, and then
comes hot again."

"Try some of those pieces out of the river bed."

"I have, sir, and they're worst of all. I say, Master Nat, stop and see
that the pot don't boil over. I want to go down and get some fresh,
clean water."

"Don't be long, then," I cried. "I say, what's in the pot?"

"Dicky bird stoo!" said Pete, grinning. "No touching while I'm gone."

He caught up the bucket and started off down the cliff-side towards the
river, while I idly watched him till he was out of sight, and sat back
away from the glow of the fire, for I was hot enough without that.

Then I naturally began thinking about the splendid trogons, and whether
there was any likely place near that we had not well hunted through.

"Lots," I said to m