off with a clatter, scattering the dead leaves. In such narrow quarters,
birds are under restraint, and show anxiety and apprehension. There is no
sport or play. They drink quickly and with faculties strained, and flutter
off excitedly on the least alarm. Well may they be suspicious, for is not
the cool spot attractive to the sly enemy, the green snake, which conceals
its presence by faithful resemblance to the creepers among which it
glides? Here, too, come millions of industrious bees, and in the dusk the
big pencil-tailed water-rat, which the masterful dog kills with as
little ceremony as he does the bird-scaring snakes.

It was late for cockatoos to start on their daily flight to the mainland
from the big tree close to the twin palms half-way up the hill, and as
they flew hastily and in close company they scolded each other in
unmannerly terms. The language must have been vexing, for as they sped
along far above the passionless sea one jostled the other. It was just
the sort of action to provoke hungry, peevish birds to vindictiveness.
That which had been jostled turned on the offender with angry shrieking,
and instantly a clamorous fight was in progress. Claws became
interlocked, and they fell each with distended crest, like a gilt-edged
cloudlet following the setting sun. Shadow and substance met with a
splash. The sea momentarily swallowed the combatants. Then a yellow note
of exclamation appeared, and with laboured flutterings, using his enemy
as a base, one rose and struggled to the beach oaks. Frantic wing-beating
showed that the other bird was in serious difficulties. It was a hundred
yards out, but the enjoyment of a sunbath after a sea frolic enabled one
to proceed to the rescue without preliminaries. Half drowned and
completely cowed, the bird was now confronted by a more awful peril than
that of the sea. A bedraggled crest indicated horror at the steady
approach of the enemy man, whose presence stimulated the sodden bird to
such extraordinary efforts that it succeeded in rising and in making slow,