Our Hoorie birds were Lavender Jays[161] and although so far from the home of their family they were no whit the less Jay-like. They constantly hailed each other with a varied vocabulary of harsh cries and calls, and now and then held a morsel of food between the toes and pounded it vigorously. They flapped but seldom, passing with short sailing flights from branch to branch not far from the ground. At night they returned rather more rapidly—less absorbed in feeding—probably to some roosting place of which they alone knew. With them, night and morning, were a few Red-backed Bunyahs or Cassiques,[152] early nesters from the colony at the dam, of which more anon. The two species seemed to associate closely, although it was evident that it was the Bunyahs which had taken up with the sturdy pioneers from the North. A short distance away from the bungalow a huge Mora stood in the forest looking down on all the trees around. The lightning bolt which had torn off its bark and killed it, had also consumed its dense clothing of parasitic vines and bush-ropes. So now it stood with naked, clean wood high above the sea of foliage, and within a day after our arrival we had christened it the Toucan Mora. In the evening, about on the stroke of seven, the first comers would arrive—a trio of Black-banded Aracaris[84] which alight and preen their feathers. These may remain quiet for about twenty minutes, but more often take to flight at the approach of a screaming flock of eight or ten Mealy Amazon Parrots[63] which scatter over the branches. But the other species of Toucans are now awake and soon the Parrots are in turn driven off, and four or five big-billed fellows usurp the dead Mora and sun themselves or call loudly to the Vultures swinging high overhead. There are two species of these larger Toucans, the Red-billed[81] and the Sulphur and White-breasted,[82] and they seem to live together amicably, but war with the small Aracaris. The notes of the Red-billed Toucans are like the yapping of a puppy, uttered in pairs and differing slightly, thus, _yap! yip! yap! yip!_ The great mandibles are opened and thrown upward at each utterance. The brilliant white-breasted birds call loudly _kiok! kiok!_ in a high, shrill tone very unlike that of their fellows. Morning and evening the Toucans and Parrots pass, always alighting on the dead Mora, while during the day we detect them deep in the jungle, feeding in the tops of the trees and sending down to us their calls, _yap!_, _kiok!_ or _squawk!_ as the case may be. [Illustration: FIG. 79. THE “LITTLE GIANT” AT WORK.] A fourth species, the Red-breasted Toucan[83] was occasionally seen high in the tree tops. These birds had two distinct utterances, one a frog-like croak, and the other a double-toned shrill cry, the two tones being B and B# above middle C.