A NEW KIND OF FRUIT.
While seated on the deck of the boat, and engaged in testing the peculiarities of an orange, Frank espied something on a tree that grew close to the water. Thinking it might be a new kind of fruit, he called the Doctor's attention to his discovery; the latter said the strange thing was nothing more nor less than the nest of a bird, and would hardly prove edible. Frank's illusion was broken, as the Doctor spoke, by a small bird that hopped on a limb in front of the supposed fruit, and at the same instant the head of another bird appeared from a hole in the nest. Evidently the nest was constructed of cotton, or something of the sort, as it was nearly snow-white in color; it hung from the limb, so that it swayed in the wind, and it was not at all surprising that Frank had mistaken it for a variety of fruit hitherto unknown to him.
TAILOR-BIRD AND NEST.
"That nest is not so remarkable," said the Doctor, "as the one made by the tailor-bird, an inhabitant of Siam and the tropical parts of India and Malacca. It chooses a leaf on a small twig, and then proceeds to puncture a row of holes along the edge with its beak, just as a shoemaker uses an awl for making holes in a piece of leather. When it has thus perforated the leaf, it takes a long fibre from a plant, and passes it through the holes. The operation of sewing is imitated with great exactness, and the fibre is pulled, like a thread, until the edges of the leaf are drawn towards each other and form a hollow cone. If the bird cannot find a single leaf large enough for its purpose, it sews two leaves together; and instances have been known where three leaves were used. When the framework of the nest is completed, the bird fills the interior with the softest down it can gather from plants, and it thus has a home which it is next to impossible to discover among the leaves. There is another bird that lives near watercourses and marshes, and constructs a nest by sewing the reeds and rushes together; but its work is not so perfect as that of the tailor-bird, and does not entitle him to equal credit."
Frank was anxious to obtain one of these nests as a curiosity, and was gratified, on his return to Bangkok, to find one for sale in the hands of a native. He bought it, and had it carefully packed, so that he could send it home without fear of injury in the next box of curiosities they should despatch to America.
From birds the conversation wandered to fishes, and the boys learned something that caused their eyes to open with astonishment. Lest it should be forgotten, it was entered in both their note-books, and read as follows:
"There is a fish in Siam, and other parts of the East, that has the remarkable peculiarity of going overland from one pond to another. When the water where they are dries up, the fishes start for the nearest pond, though it may be several miles away; and they propel themselves by means of their fins, very much as a turtle drags himself with his feet. Their instinct is unerring, and they have never been known to make a mistake about heading for the water that is nearest. It is said that you may take one of them up and turn him around half a dozen times, till he is dizzy, but he will not lose his points of compass. When he is put down again he takes the proper direction, and though you put him off the track ever so many times, he always returns to it."
"We shall next hear, I suppose, that there are fishes that climb trees," Fred remarked, as he finished his note on the fishes that go overland.