The first time Dr. Livingstone saw this bird was at Kolobeng, where he had gone to the forest for some timber. Standing by a tree, a native looked behind him and exclaimed, ‘There is the nest of a korwê.’ Seeing a slit only about half an inch wide and three or four inches long in a slight hollow of the tree, and thinking the word korwê denoted some small animal, he waited with interest to see what the Bechuana would extract. The latter, breaking the clay which surrounded the slit, put his arm into the hole, and brought out a tockus, or red-beaked hornbill, which he killed. The brilliant Sun-birds or Suimangas (_Cinnyris_) of Asia and Africa, are the Colibris of the old world, equally ethereal, gay, and sparkling in their motions, flitting briskly from flower to flower, and assuming a thousand lively and agreeable attitudes. The sunbeams glittering on their bodies make them sparkle like so many gems. As they hover about the honey-laden blossoms, they vibrate rapidly their tiny pinions, producing in the air a slight whirring sound, but not so loud as the humming noise produced by the wings of the colibris. Thrusting their slender beaks into the deep-cupped flowers, they probe them with their brushlike tongues for insects and nectar. Some are emerald green, some vivid violet, others yellow with a crimson wing, and rivalling the colibris by the metallic lustre of their plumage, they surpass them by their musical powers, for the latter can only hum, but the sun-birds accompany their movements with an agreeable chirp. [Illustration: ARGUS PHEASANT.] [Illustration: JAVANESE PEACOCK.] While the superb ocellated turkey of Honduras (_Meleagris ocellata_) displays, with all the pride of a peacock, the eye-like marks of his tail and upper-coverts, the no less beautifully spotted Argus, a bird nearly related to the gold and silver pheasants which have been introduced from China into the European aviaries, conceals his splendour in the dense forests of Java and Sumatra. The wings of this magnificent creature, whose plumage is equally remarkable for variety and elegance, consist of very large feathers, nearly three feet long, the outer webs being adorned with a row of large eyes, arranged parallel to the shaft; the tail is composed of twelve feathers, the two middle ones being about four feet in length, the next scarcely two, and gradually shortening to the outer ones. Its voice is plaintive and not harsh, as in the Indian peacock, which Alexander the Great is said to have first introduced into Europe, though its feathers had many centuries before been imported by the Phœnicians. The Peacock is still found wild in many parts of Asia and Africa, but more particularly in the fertile plains of India. Another species, nearly similar in size and proportions, but distinguished by a much longer crest, inhabits the Javanese forests.