AND OTHER BIRDS 77 



I settled into my bower and heard Hans and 

 Gilfillan tramping off through the forest and 

 talking so that the birds might know that more 

 than one person had departed from their tree. 

 Whether Parrots can count I know not, but 

 from the beginning of my vigil the birds, I am 

 convinced, somehow knew of my presence be- 

 neath the waterfall of greenery. The male was 

 very wild and shy, or possibly merely uncon- 

 cerned, and I saw but little of him. Two or 

 'three times a day he would arrive, circling the 

 nesting tree, and uttering a ringing and most 

 melodious "u-wiia," "u-wiia." He then settled 

 on some perch not very near the tree, and there 

 the female joined him. He never stayed for any 

 length of time, and would finally depart with 

 the harsh screech so well known, "u-che," 

 "u-che," uttered several times. The hen 

 managed to return so silently that often my first 

 notification of her presence was the renewed fall 

 of bark and stick from far above. Often she 

 was so directly overhead that the waste, torn off 

 by her bill, filtering through the leafy screen, 

 would fall directly on to the mirror of my 

 camera. She never seemed to rest, hopping 

 easily from bough to bough, or swinging leisurely 

 by her bill, testing and tasting each branch, and 

 without cessation stripping, shredding, and tear- 

 ing bark and branchlets. That day until the 

 darkness began to fall I waited, having for hours 

 hardly dared even to cross or uncross my legs; 

 but the nestlings never evinced the faintest sign 

 of hunger, nor the parent birds the least anxiety 

 about the nourishment of their brood. The 

 whole of the next morning again I waited in vain, 

 and it was not until cooeeing and shouting to 



