each of these always on hand; in which endeavor I am faithfully aided by the whole population of the island, who bring me eggs and nests and young birds in abundance.  If the Soul of the little yellow kingfisher now were to die, without a successor being found ready at once to receive and embody it, then the whole race of little yellow kingfishers would vanish altogether; and if I myself, the King of the Birds, who am, as it were, the Soul and life of all of them, were to die without a successor being at hand to receive my spirit, then all the race of birds, with one accord, would become extinct forthwith and forever.”

He moved among his pets easily, like a king among his subjects.  Most of them seemed to know him and love his presence.  Presently, he came to one very old parrot, quite different from any Felix had ever seen on any trees in the island; it was a parrot with a black crest and a red mark on its throat, half blind with age, and tottering on its pedestal.  This solemn old bird sat apart from all the others, nodding its head oracularly in the sunlight, and blinking now and again with its white eyelids in a curious senile fashion.

The Frenchman turned to Felix with an air of profound mystery.  “This bird,” he said, solemnly stroking its head with his hand, while the parrot turned round to him and bit at his finger with half-doddering affection—­“this bird is the oldest of all my birds—–­is it not so, Methuselah?—­and illustrates well in one of its aspects the superstition of these people.  Yes, my friend, you are the last of a kind now otherwise extinct, are you not, mon vieux? No, no, there—­gently!  Once upon a time, the natives tell me, dozens of these parrots existed in the island; they flocked among the trees, and were held very sacred; but they were hard to catch and difficult to keep, and the Kings of the Birds, my predecessors, failed to secure an heir and coadjutor to this one.  So as the Soul of the species, which you see here before you, grew old and feeble, the whole of the race to which it belonged grew old and feeble with it.  One by one they withered away and died, till at last this solitary specimen alone remained to vouch for the former existence of the race in the island.  Now, the islanders say, nothing but the Soul itself is left; and when the Soul dies, the red-throated parrots will be gone forever.  One of my predecessors paid with his life in awful tortures for his remissness in not providing for the succession to the soulship.  I tell you these things in order that you may see whether they cast any light for you upon your own position; and also because the oldest and wisest natives say that this parrot alone, among beasts or birds or uninitiated things, knows the secret on which depends the life of the Tu-Kila-Kila for the time being.”

“Can the parrot speak?” Felix asked, with profound emotion.