A few months ago a friend who owns a fruitful estate fronting one of the
rivers of the mainland, who was not aware of the aptitude of the bird,
was working with his blacks when "calloo-calloo" gave voice. "That's one!"
exclaimed Dilly Boy, as he rushed into a thick patch of jungle; "he
bin lookout snake!" The boss, concluding that Dilly Boy had merely
invented a plausible excuse for a spell, smiled to himself when he came
back in half an hour wearing an air of philosophic disappointment. "That
fella snake along a tree; bin lookout; too much leep [leaf]. That
calloo-calloo, him sing out proper. Him no more humbug!"

Huge carpet snakes frequently coil themselves so carefully among
parasitic ferns and orchids in the trees that it is impossible to detect
them from below. A couple of days after work was proceeding in the same
locality when a snake, 12 feet long, was found and killed, but the fact
was then not accepted as proof of the theory of the blacks. In the course
of a few days the bird again proclaimed "snake," and all the blacks
hastened to the spot to set about a systematic search. Applying the
detective principle of isolation to various parts of the tree in which by
general consent (corroborating the evidence of the bird) the snake was
concluded to be, the blacks at last decided that the only possible place
of concealment was a mass of elk's-horn fern encircling the trunk about
40 feet from the ground. One of them thereupon climbed the tree, and soon
a carpet snake, 14 feet 6 inches long and 12 inches in girth, was
writhing on the ground. It is well known that these snakes are frequently
found in pairs, and no doubt the "calloo-calloo" had signified the
presence of the mate on the occasion of the first alarm.

Other instances of the shrewdness of the bird and its care for the
wellbeing of the order generally by detecting and proclaiming the
presence of the universal enemy might be cited. One authority asserts