94 THE ORIOLES. 



more an Oriole than anything else. It will always 

 be known- however, as the Green Bulbul. The 

 Green Bulbul is too little known among bird fanciers. 

 Not only is it beautiful, exquisitely beautiful, but it 

 is a bird of talent, and it is a wag. Disguised in the 

 hue of the foliage among which it lurks, it plays bo- 

 peep at the other birds and mocks them all in turn. 

 Now it is a King Crow, now a Sunbird, now a 

 Sparrow Hawk. You stare into the tree and see 

 neither King Crow, nor Sunbird, nor Sparrow 

 Hawk ; but the crimson eye of the little mocker 

 is fixed on you, as, with head turned to one side, 

 he watches your perplexity. Not till he flits across to 

 another tree and begins the same game there will you 

 find out who has been fooling you. For this reason 

 few even of those who take an interest in birds know 

 how very common the Green Bulbul really is. But 

 I cannot account for its being so little sought after as 

 a cage-bird. They are occasionally to be seen 

 for sale at the Crawford Market, and I once had 

 a young one which I took from a nest. It was 

 progressing well and would soon have been able 

 to feed itself, when a vile tree snake got through 

 the bars of the cage and killed it. I cannot think 

 of any bird that would make a more charming pet, 

 or a more ornamental. Its forehead is touched with 

 gold, its chin and throat are velvet black, its mous- 

 taches are hyacinth blue, and the tip of its shoulder 

 is touched with the same : all the rest of it as green 

 as a field of young rice with the de\v on it. The 

 Green Bulbul makes a loose, cup-shaped nest, usually 

 at the end of a branch of some large tree, and lays 

 two or three eggs, which are white with claret- 



