little thing with a lovely name, Lupoba-Tilaana, "Mist-on-the-Mountain."

"Swank," I said, "that's a ten-strike. The mountain is a little out
of focus but the mist is immense!"

He squirted me with yellow ochre.

Whinney was in his element. Ornithology, botany, ethulology, he took
them all on single-handed.

"Listen to that," he said to me one night as we were strolling back
from a friendly game of _Kahooti_ with Baahaabaa and some of our
friends.

I listened. It was the most unearthly and at the same time the most
beautiful bird-song I have ever heard.

"What is it?" I asked, as the cry resounded again, a piercing screech
of pain ending in a long yowl of joy.

"It is the motherhood cry of the _fatu-liva_," he said. "She has just
laid an egg."

"But why the note of suffering?" I queried.

"The eggs of the _fatu-liva_ are square," said Whinney, and I was
silenced.

Motherhood is indeed the great mystery. Little did I realize that night
how much I was to owe to the _fatu-liva_ and her strange maternal gift