CHAP. XXXI.] THE KING-BIRD. 221 



necessary to erect a small leafy covering or hut among tlie 

 branches, to which the hunter mounts before dayhght in 

 the morning and remains the whole day, and whenever a 

 bird alights they are almost sure of securing it. (See 

 Frontispiece.) They returned to their homes the same 

 evening, and I never saw anything more of them, owing, 

 as I afterwards found, to its being too early to obtain 

 birds in good plumage. 



The first two or three days of our stay here were very 

 wet, and I obtained but few insects or birds, but at length, 

 when I was beginning to despair, my boy Baderoon 

 returned one day with a specimen which repaid me for 

 months of delay and expectation. It was a small bird, a 

 little less than a thrush. The greater part of its plumage 

 was of an intense cinnabar red, with a gloss as of spun glass. 

 On the head the feathers became short and velvety, and 

 shaded into rich orange. Beneath, from the breast down- 

 wards, was pure white, with the softness and gloss of silk, 

 and across the breast a band of deep metallic green sepa- 

 rated this colour from the red of the throat. Above each 

 eye was a round spot of the same metallic green ; the bill 

 was yellow, and the feet and legs were of a fine cobalt 

 blue, strikingly contrasting with all the other parts of the 

 body. Merely in arrangement of colours and texture of 

 plumage this little bird was a gem of the first water, yet 

 these comprised only half its strange beauty. Springing 



