crowd just above my head, almost deafening me with their angry
screams.

The smaller bird, the paroquet, which was about the size of a turtle-
dove, had a uniform rich green colour above and ashy-grey beneath,
and, like most parrots, it nested in trees. It is one of the most
social birds I know; it lives all the year round in communities and
builds huge nests of sticks near together as in a rookery, each nest
having accommodation for two or three to half-a-dozen pairs. Each pair
has an entrance and nest cavity of its own in the big structure.

The only breeding-place in our neighbourhood was in a grove or remains
of an ancient ruined plantation at an estancia house, about nine miles
from us, owned by an Englishman named Ramsdale. Here there was a
colony of about a couple of hundred birds, and the dozen or more trees
they had built on were laden with their great nests, each one
containing as much material as would have filled a cart.

Mr. Ramsdale was not our nearest English neighbour--the one to be
described in another chapter; nor was he a man we cared much about,
and his meagre establishment was not attractive, as his old slatternly
native housekeeper and the other servants were allowed to do just what
they liked. But he was English and a neighbour, and my parents made it
a point of paying him an occasional visit, and I always managed to go
with them--certainly not to see Mr. Ramsdale, who had nothing to say
to a shy little boy and whose hard red face looked the face of a hard
drinker. _My_ visits were to the paroquets exclusively. Oh, why,
thought I many and many a time, did not these dear green people come
over to us and have their happy village in our trees! Yet when I
visited them they didn't like it; no sooner would I run out to the