422 



NATURAL HISTORY OF BIRDS. 



were regarding it with peculiar attention, and talking among themselves in reference 

 to it. On asking what caused the unusual interest of the boys in, to all appearance, 

 a very commonplace bird, it was explained that this little insignificant visitor was the 

 far-famed honey-bird. As soon as the oxen were outspanned and the boys at liberty, 

 three of them, armed with buckets, spades and hatchets, set off towards the bird, 

 which had flown to a neighboring tree as soon as it perceived that our attention was 

 successfully attracted. A. and myself, to whom it was as strange an adventure as it 

 was novel, accompanied the boys. As soon as we reached the tree the little fellow 

 had perched on, it flitted to the next, and then on again when we came up. For 



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FIG. 211. Indicator indicator, honey-guide. 



nearly a mile this was kept up, and as the way grew more difficult and the bushes 

 more dense, our own faith in the bird was rapidly giving place to irritation at what 

 began to look very like a trick of the others at the expense of our inexperience. 

 However, the boys seemed so genuinely astonished at our doubts, that we still fol- 

 lowed on. 



" At last the bird stopped altogether in a small clump of some dozen mimosa-trees, 

 all growing within a few feet of one another. When we came up to it, instead of, as 

 heretofore, flying off in a straight line, it just flitted on to an opposite tree, remained 

 there a few moments, and then back to its previous position. This was its signal that 

 the nest was close at hand. The boys examined the trunks of the trees round most 

 carefully, but could find no opening where the nest could by any possibility be situ- 

 ated. The bird grew more and more angry and indignant at what it evidently con- 



