“No, uncle, it is not a thrush,” I cried. “It is a lovely blue and grey bird.”
“What is it, then, Nat?” he said, smiling. “Have you forgotten all I told you about the representatives of our home birds being bright in colour?”
“But I did not think a thrush could be all of a lovely pale blue, uncle,” I said; “and I never saw such a pigeon as that. Why, its back and wings are almost as green as those cuckoos—the trogons—and what beautiful feet and eyes! Oh! uncle,” I said, “I am glad we came.”
He smiled as he knelt down and carefully smoothed the feathers of the great pigeon, thrusting a little cotton-wool into its beak to soak up any moisture that might escape and damage the feathers.
“We shall, I believe, find plenty of magnificent pigeons out here, Nat,” he said, as I eagerly watched his acts, so as to know what to do next time.
“But I never expected to find pigeons, uncle, with gold and violet reflections on their feathers.”
“Why not, Nat,” he replied laughing, “when in dull, foggy old England, where there is so little sunshine, the pigeons and doves have beautiful iris-like reflections on their necks and breasts? Now for the thrush. There, Nat, that is a beauty. I should have felt that I had done a good day’s work if I had only secured that dainty prize with its delicately harmonious coat of soft grey and blue.”
“And it is a thrush, uncle?”
“Certainly. Look at the beak. This is one of the Pittas or ground-thrushes, Nat, of which there are a good many out in these islands. Some of them are, I believe, much more brightly coloured than this; but bright plumage is not all we want, my boy; it is new specimens, Nat. We must be discoverers as well as collectors.”
By this time the lovely thrush was hung with the two pigeons carefully by the beaks to a long bamboo, and after we had explained to our black companion, by means of a little dumb-show, that he must carry the bamboo carefully, a task which, after a few skips and bounds to show his delight, he undertook to perform. We went on again, trusting to him to find the way back through the wilderness of great tree trunks, some of which rose, without a branch, to a vast height above our heads, but only to make up for it afterwards, for the branches then clustered so thickly that all the sunshine was shut out, and we walked in the deep shadow, save where here and there we found an opening which looked quite dazzling by contrast. Here it was that we found flowers growing, and saw traces enough of insects to make us determine to bring collecting-boxes another time, on purpose to obtain the glorious beetles and butterflies that we saw here and there.