its long beak for striking, and brought up a wriggling fish, which with a jerk of its head it turned end for end and swallowed.  Another actor came within the field of the glass—­the mate of the heron, alighting on the stone beside her lord and master.  He was in a peckish humour, and instantly the tufts on his shoulders, the long feathers on the neck, and the rudimentary crest were angrily erected, and he made a peevish snap at her.  You can imagine his reproof—­“Get away from this.  Don’t crowd a fellow.  Go to a rock of your own.  This is my place.  You spoil my sport!” Then, remembering that domestic tiffs were not edifying to strangers—­and there was the sober brown curlew looking on—­the bird let his angry feathers subside, and made way for his spouse on the best point of the rock.  Each on one leg, they stood shoulder to shoulder, the very embodiment of connubial bliss.  I noticed, too, that the mistress was allowed to fish to her heart’s content, the master never raising a feather in remonstrance, though she gobbled up all that came along.

Low-lying Mung-um-gnackum, the abode of the varied honey-eater, the tranquil dove, and the brooding-place of the night-jar (CAPRIMULGUS) and lovely Kumboola, lie to the south-west, a bare half-mile away.

Kumboola’s sheltered aspect is thickly clad with jungle; a steep grassy ridge springs from the blue-grey rocks to the south-east; and on the precipitous weather side grow low and open scrub and dwarf casuarina.  Here is a natural aviary.  Pigeons and doves coo; honey-eaters whistle; sun-birds whisper quaint, quick notes; wood swallows soar and twitter.  Metallic starlings seek safe sleeping-places among the mangroves, ere they repair last year’s villages, and join excitedly in the chorus; while the great osprey wheels overhead, and the grey falcon sits on a bare branch, still as a sentinel, each waiting for an opportunity to take toll of the nutmeg pigeons.  The channel-billed cuckoo shrieks her discordant warning of the approaching wet season; and the scrub fowl utters those far-off imitations of the exclamation of civilised hens.  Sundown at Kumboola towards the end of September, when the sea laps and murmurs among the rocks, and great white pigeons gather in thousands on the dark foliage, or “coo-hooing” and flapping, disappear beneath the thick leafy canopy, and all the other birds are saying their good-nights, or asserting their rights, or protesting against crowding or intrusion, is an ever-to-be-remembered experience.  Added to the cheerful presence of the noisy birds, are the pleasant odours which spring from the jungle as coolness prevails, and the flaming west gives a weird tint of red to the outlines of the trees, and of purple to the drowsy sea.