i6o 
A NATURALIST ON THE PROWL. 
how few know that there is such a bird as the Green 
Bulbul ! Yet it is everywhere, hopping about among the 
green leaves, unobserved, but observing everything and 
mocking all the birds in turn. First there is a King Crow 
calling cheerily in the tree just over your head ; but you 
look for it in vain ; there is no King Crow in sight. 
Suddenly it stops, and the fierce scream of the Sparrow 
Hawk takes its place ; but where is the Sparrow Hawk ? 
In a few minutes a Sunbird is twittering just where the 
Sparrow Hawk must have been ; then two Sunbirds are 
quarrelling. This is too absurd. You fling a stone into 
the branches and a small green bird gets out at the back 
of the tree and flits across to the next, where the King 
Crow immediately begins to call. And all the time the 
blackguard is sitting quietly amongst the leaves, his head 
bent down and his twinkling black eye enjoying the effect 
of his mockeries. 
How is it that a bird so talented and dressed so 
superbly is never made captive by man and put into 
his dungeons to make him sport ? When the Bombay 
birdman comes round with his Canaries and Parrots and 
stupid blue Java Sparrows and emaciated white mice, 
twirling away their weary lives in little wire wheels, he has 
