My Tahiti by Robert Dean Frisbie — Read

Old Bill was a garrulous, irascible myna bird, the unquestioned leader of his flock. He gave me many a laugh as he dashed here and there, keeping his fellow birds in a continual state of noisy idsorder. I have little sentimental love for birds. The death of a meadow lark leaves me cold; the "full-throated" song of a "light-winged dryad of the trees" bores me; I cannot sympathize with those who go into ecstasies over a nest of robins. But a noisy row of black crows perched on the ridge of a barn; a heron, effigy of evil, stalking down the beach with his head popping out and then bobbing back to be all but lost between his shoulder blades; a war-worn rooster, scarred in many battles for the love of hens--these, and a flock of obstreperous myna birds, fill me with delight.

Old Bill was a rare soul, one of Vaiiti's leading characters. He seemed to be everywhere at the same time: cadging grated coconut from Reretu's fowls, and fighting them successfully if need be; perched on the back of the Chinaman's pig, preening his feathers and clacking his sentiments to the unsympathetic sky. And if one walked a mile down the beach, there Old Bill would be, in the midst of a circle of fifty screaming birds, refereeing a fight between two lady mynas, perhaps fighting himself and adding a few more scars to his already war-damaged head and breast.