He laid stones on the corners of the leaf, and patted the snowy mass of rice out smoothly, and filled a bamboo drinking-cup from the brook, while I pretended not to see. At meal-times Tranquid has a solemn and important air worthy of the most autocratic of London butlers, and I am a babe in his hands. “Breakfast is served, señor,” said Tranquid, gravely. “I come,” I replied, with equal gravity, and rolled over twice and came up on my knees, Japanese fashion, beside my lowly table. Just as I was going to plunge my fingers into the rice, a cock crowed loud and clear among the trees close at hand. A great ferocity of meat hunger swept over me. “Give me the boom-boom, Justin!” I commanded. “We will have manuk del monte for breakfast.” The cock crowed often while I stole through the undergrowth, as softly as the ferns and bristly creepers would let me. As I drew near, the crowing ceased, and I was peering about the brush and shrub for a sight of the cock when—_whir_! From the lower branches of a tree, fifty feet above my head, a splendid bird shot out with a boom like a partridge and sailed away between the tree trunks, a dazzling vision of white and green and gold. I was too startled to shoot, for I had never before seen chickens that roost like eagles and flew like pheasants and were as brilliant as humming-birds. In a moment I heard his strong wings beating on the other side of the valley, and I went back and ate my rice quietly. That incident began my acquaintance with the wild chickens, and they soon grew to be a very dear part of the forest life, bringing me an odd mixture of pleasant memory and homesickness as I listened to them. We heard them always when we made and left our one-night homes along the trail. The cocks proved to be just as exacting husbands as their domesticated cousins, crowing their families home and abroad with fussy punctuality. If a gay young cockerel or a giddy pullet lingered too long afield, the lord of the flock grew noisy with anxiety as the sunset faded. With the dawn he woke, brisk and important, and woe betide the sleepyhead of the family. There was no “Rouse up, sweet slugabed” for him, but an ear-splitting call, and we often chuckled at thought of the sheepish haste of the laggard when that sound penetrated to his sleepy brain. A tropical forest is a thing of awe and mystery, with its eternal dim twilight and tangled creepers, and innumerable dark vistas which hide inhabitants one seldom hears and never sees. Most of the creatures seem to feel the silent immensity and vagueness as a man does, and seek safety in unobtrusiveness. These brave, cheery birds alone were unaffected by it, and they crowed and cackled and clucked about their business of living as carelessly as if there were no such thing as fear in the world. Yet with all their independence they showed a baffling shyness, and many weeks went by before I caught more than a distant glimpse of one.