“Why not, Nat? If cuckoos are slaty coloured here and have breasts striped like a hawk, that is no reason why in the hot climates, where the sun burns your skin brown, they should not be brightly coloured in scarlet and green. You have seen that the modest speckled thrush of England has for relatives thrushes of yellow and orange. What has the poor cuckoo done that his hot country friends should not be gay?”
“But do these lovely creatures suck all the little birds’ eggs to make their voices clear?”
“And when they cry ‘cuckoo’ the summer draws near, eh, Nat? No, my boy, I think not. To begin with, I believe that it is all a vulgar error about the cuckoo sucking little birds’ eggs. Doubtless cuckoos have been shot with eggs in their mouths, perhaps broken in the fall, but I think the eggs they carried were their own, which, after laying, they were on their way to put in some other bird’s nest to be hatched, as it is an established fact they do; and because they are very small eggs people think they are those of some other bird that the cuckoo has stolen.”
“Are cuckoos’ eggs small, uncle?” I said.
“Very, my boy, for so large a bird. I have seen them very little larger than the wagtail’s with which they were placed. Then as to their crying ‘cuckoo’ when summer draws near. I have heard their notes, and they live in a land of eternal summer. But go on emptying the case.”
I drew out specimen after specimen, some even more beautiful than the first I had taken from the case, though some were far more sober in their hues; but I had not taken out one yet from the top row. When at last I set one of these free, with his tail quite a yard in length, my admiration knew no bounds.
In colouring it was wonderfully like the first which I have described, but in addition it had a golden-green crest, and the long feathers of the tail were of the same brilliant metallic colour. It seemed to me then—and though now I find beauties in sober hues I do not think I can alter my opinion—one of the loveliest, I should say one of the most magnificent, birds in creation, and when fourteen of these wonderful creatures were laid side by side I could have stopped for hours revelling in their beauties.
“Well, Nat,” said my uncle, who quite enjoyed my thorough admiration, “I should make quite a naturalist of you if I had you with me.”
“Oh, if I could go!” I cried in an excited tone, at which he merely laughed. “I’d give anything to see those birds alive.”
“It requires some work and patience, my boy. I was a whole year in the most inaccessible places hunting for those trogons before I got them.”