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 purposes. It is hard, and will bear a sharp point, and is so abundant that the people seem to have no end to the use they make of it.”