Then when I saw the exotic colors and plumage of the other birds from all over the world, I grew very excited and called Mommy to come to see every new exhibit. The birds were in panel-decorated glass cases. The bird from Java was called the Talking Mynah. The black and shiny green body of the Greater Mynah was very interesting to see, for the yellow-winged crest of smooth velvet skin folding back like a hat on the head with its orange-yellow beak, was a contrast to its body of black and green.

This bird comes from the South Pacific in the South Seas. The Java Islands are bordered by the Indian Ocean on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other side. We looked it up on the globe.

There was a white fleck on the back wings, and the bright big black eyes of the bird shined with real intelligence.

I waited for Mommy at the next window. There the brilliant colors and flaming scarlet, yellow, blue, and green tails of the South American Macaws filled the cage, as their loud screeching "Hellos" filled the room.

Mommy said the Bird House and the Monkey House were "labyrinths" winding in and out. The building had been redecorated because it was an old building that used to have a stuffed collection of animals and skeletons years ago.

When Mr. Arthur R. Watson came on March 1, 1948, to be in charge of the zoo, the Bird House was begun at the end of that year and finished in 1949, when we went there. Later on, the apes and the monkeys were placed in the Monkey House joining the Bird House.

When we left the outer room with the Mynah and the Macaws, we entered the Hall of Jewels. It was a winding, dim, long hall lit by the colors of the birds and the lamps behind the glass cages.

We looked at the Bleeding Heart Doves of the Philippines for a while. They had soft, gray, plump bodies with a blood-red spot on the middle of their breasts.

Next we saw the weird-looking black and white Pied Hornbill of India with a huge overhanging beak. There were finches too, and waxbills, and weavers, and whydahs from Asia, Africa, and Australia. Many of them had the brightest red beaks. They were small and dainty and delicate in color and in their flight. There were beautiful green lovebirds from Africa. One was "masked." It had a red mask covering the throat and the front of the head.

The blue magpie from the Himalayas sat perched on a limb with its long curled tail, black and white and gray, swinging, as the gray and black bird sat and listened.

Near the end of the Hall of Jewels was the Apricot Cock-of-the-Rock from South America. We liked its name and its beautiful soft color that glowed deeply in the dim light. Then we left the bird exhibits enclosed in their glass cases.

Mommy said, "The notes of a bird are as gay or as mournful as the most happy or most tragic things in life."

She read somewhere a description of the peculiar notes of a bird heard by night on the shores of the Amazon River in Brazil. The Indian guides call it "The Cry of a Lost Soul." This was the story, as Mommy wrote it down:

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