2778 The Zoologist— October, 1871. 



iuform me of the discovery of a uest by imitating the call of the wood king- 

 fisher (Halcyon dnjas). Soou after the sudden signal of my man informed me 

 that he had been successful in finding iiests : repeating the call alternately, 

 I at last got to the place where he was, and the position of the nest was 

 pointed out to me. A hole in the trunk of one of the trees was, according to 

 my man, the home of a pair of parrots. Knowing from experience how sharp- 

 eyed these fellows are, I was quite sure that something parrot-like would be 

 found inside the hole. Darkness was now coming on fast, and it being too 

 late to do anything that night we marked the tree by fastening some palm- 

 leaves on the ti'unk, and left the breeding pair inside the hole undisturbed 

 till next morning. While thus occupied, troops of parrots approached from 

 difierent sides and settled among the trees. As for ourselves, we found a 

 capital shelter under a clump of bushes, where we concealed ourselves, and 

 from there observed unperceived the doings of the parrots around us. 

 Some were climbing and hanging on the branches, others flying and 

 scampering through the foliage ; we saw them perching close to each other, 

 and afterwards five or six settled just above our shelter. Numbers came 

 from all sides, and the chattering which we had previously heard at the 

 distance was by this time close to us. There was a noise of whistling, 

 screaming, quarrelling, and the breaking of dead branches. We saw them 

 pass befere us and settle on the trees : at this time we must have been sur- 

 rounded by hundreds of parrots. Being now almost dark, and having to pass 

 the night in the open air, it was time to take steps to make our sojourn in 

 the forest as comfortable as possible. A fire being the first necessity, we left 

 our shelter in order to gather some of the dead palm-leaves that lay about: 

 as we emerged from our covert the parrots perceived us, and in a moment 

 the whole place was ringing with their deafening screams. The fire was 

 soon made, and, burning up quickly, it cast a cheerful light and warmth 

 around the spot, rendering our bivouac more agreeable ; and the parrots, 

 attracted by the unusual sight, kept flying over and around the place thus 

 illuminated. An hour afterwards, quiet being restored, we proceeded to get 

 our supper, consisting of roasted bananas : this being finished, we dried 

 some moss to serve for a bed and retired; but the night was so cold, 

 and the mosquitos kejit stinging my face so pertinaciously, that it was 

 impossible to sleep ; so I got up and roasted some more bananas, smoked a 

 pipe, and then felt quite ready to go in pursuit of the birds. My companion 

 was sleeping soundly, apparently undisturbed by those causes that deprived 

 me of my sleep. As it wanted some three hours of daylight, I occupied 

 myself in preparing limed sticks and making snares. On the appearance 

 of the first streak of dawn we proceeded to the tree wliei'e a nest was 

 suspected to be: my black man, being a capital climber, went up to the 

 hole, and looking in found two young parrots, which he carefully tied up in 

 a pocket-handkerchief and lowered down to me : the little things seemed to 



