196 CONVERSATIONS ON 



fore a great while. But let us go back to our 

 African birds. 



" There is another kind which Mr. Vaillant 

 speaks of, and I will tell you of that. He calls 

 it the capocier, and he had a very fine oppor- 

 tunity to watch two of them. It is a bird 

 easily made gentle, and he had managed by 

 feeding two of them to make them so tame 

 that they would come into his tent and hop 

 about several times in a day, though he never 

 had them in a cage. When it became time 

 for them to build a nest, they staid away for 

 some time, and would come to the tent once 

 only in four or five days. At last they began 

 to come regularly, as before, and Mr. Vaillant 

 soon found out what they came for. They 

 had seen upon his table cotton and moss and 

 flax, which he used to stuff the skins of birds, 

 and which were always lying there ; and the 

 capociers had come for these things, to build 

 their nest of them. They would take up 

 large bunches of them in their bills and fly 

 away. Mr. Vaillant followed and watched 

 them to see the nest built, and found them at 

 work in the corner of a garden, by the side of 

 a spring, in a large plant which grew under 



