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Updated: June 12, 2025
It stands in a deep pool about a hundred yards in circumference, and as like as not we shall find the surface of the water covered by thousands of green-backed, red-billed garfish and silvery mullet, whose very numbers prevent them from escaping. Scores of them leap out upon the sand, and lie there with panting gill and flapping tail.
With a survey of the crescent composed of a score of such sticks all lying flat, Kohokumu wiped his hands on his naked sides and lifted the wearisome and centuries-old chant of Kuali: "Oh, the great fish-hook of Maui! Manai-i-ka-lani "made fast to the heavens"! An earth-twisted cord ties the hook, Engulfed from lofty Kauiki! Its bait the red-billed Alae, The bird to Hina sacred!
For years and years we have been patiently writing letters to explain over and over that the band-tailed pigeon of the Pacific coast, and the red-billed pigeon of Arizona and the southwest are neither of them the passenger pigeon, and never can be.
That is to say, no matter whether the scythes were softly swishing through the grass, or ricks were being built, or rafts were being loaded, he would allow his eyes to wander from his men, and to fall to gazing at, say, a red-billed, red-legged heron which, after strutting along the bank of a stream, would have caught a fish in its beak, and be holding it awhile, as though in doubt whether to swallow it.
And now and again wild flights of red-billed puffins swept up from the water and settled out of his sight at the eastern end of the rock, and he promised himself to look them up some other day if opportunity offered. From the constant tumult of the seas about his rock, except just at low water, he saw little fear of being taken by surprise, even if his presence there became known.
East of Simla the red-billed species is by far the commoner, while to the west the yellow-billed form rules the roost. The vernacular names for the blue-magpie are Nilkhant at Mussoorie and Dig-dall at Simla. This species is like a dull edition of the tree-pie of the plains. It is dressed like a quaker. It is easily recognised when on the wing.
They are usually granivorous, though some are insectivorous; and one species, the "red-billed weaver bird" is a parasite of the wild buffaloes. It is a mistake to suppose that weaver-birds are only found in Africa and the Old World, as stated in the works of many naturalists.
The other was: "When through the desert roved the Jews, Their shoes for forty years they wore, Were the same custom now in use, 'Prentice would ne'er seek cobbler's door." On the ridge of the lofty house was the stork's nest, now empty. The red-billed guests did not usually set out on their journey to the south so early, and some were still in Leyden, standing on the roofs as if lost in thought.
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