The tyrannical fig-tree of the species referred to elsewhere, in full fruit--pink in colouring until it attains purple ripeness--attracts birds from all parts, and for nearly a quarter of the year is as gay as a theatre. From sunset to sunrise birds feast and flirt with but brief interludes. A general dispersal of the assemblage occurs only in the tragic presence of a falcon, whose murderous deeds are transiently recorded by stray painted feathers. But the fright soon passes, and the magnificent fruit pigeon--green, golden-yellow, purplish-maroon, rich orange, bluish-grey, and greenish-yellow, are his predominant colours--resumes his love-plaint in bubbling bass. "Bub-loo, bub-loo maroo," he says over and over again in unbirdlike tone, without emphasis or lilt. "Bub-loo, bub-loo maroo," a grievance, a remonstrance and a threat in one doleful phrase; but to the flattered female it is all compliment and gallantry. That other, known as the allied--so like his cousin that his dissonant accents, "quok--quok--quoo," are more to be relied upon as ready means of identification than any striking difference in plumage; the white-headed, the pheasant-tail, the gorgeous "superb," the tranquil dove, Ewing's fruit pigeon--most timorous of the order--are regular patrons, and each of the family has the distinctive demeanour and note. All save the allied--which is too full of assurance and fruit to be disconcerted by the presence of man--may flutter into the jungle, and then, as the momentary disturbance subsides, a study, whimsical and rich, begins. With one exception the fruit pigeons, however gay the colouring of the throat and breast and under parts generally, are green of back, that passing falcons may be deceived by resemblance to leafy environment. Yet the "superb" and Ewing's and Swainson's have the richest of crowns--crowns pink, or shimmering rosy purple. Why this fanciful decoration if not to carry the delusion further by resemblance to a flower? These glorious pigeons are but a few of the many birds that come to the tree with its millions of pink figs, and enliven the scene with soft notes and eager whistles. Varied and fasciated honey-eaters, black and white, and Jardine's caterpillar-eaters, the tiny swallow dicaeum, in a tight-fitting costume of blue-black and red (who must bruise and batter the fruit to reduce it to gobbling dimensions), the yellow white-eye (who pecks it to pieces), the white-bellied and the varied graucalus, the drongo, the shining calornis--these and others have been included time after time in the one enumeration. Cockatoos do not visit the fig-trees as systematically as might be expected. When they come they waste almost as lavishly as the flying foxes at night, nipping off branchlets and dropping them after eating but two or three of the figs.