24 Scott, Forgotten Feathers. f 



Emu 

 2nd July 



part of the wings of this Noddy were white, and the back and 

 upper part of its wings of a faint black or smoke colour. Noddies 

 are seen in most places between the tropics, as well as in the 

 East Indies, and on the coast of Brazil, as in the West Indies. 

 They rest ashore anights, and therefore we never see them far at 

 sea — not above 20 or 30 leagues, unless driven off in a storm. 

 But they come about a ship. They approach in the night, and 

 will sit still till they are taken by seamen. They build on cliffs 

 against the sea or rocks." 



When searching for water on the north coast, Dampier saw a 

 few more birds. " The land birds that we saw here," he relates, 

 " were Crows, just such as ours in England ; small Hawks and 

 Kites, a few of each sort. But there are plenty of small Turtle- 

 Doves, that are plump, fat, and very good meat." Roast Pigeon 

 was, at all events, a welcome change after grilled shark, we may 

 be sure. " There are two or three sorts of smaller birds, some as 

 big as Larks, some less, but not many of either sort. Sea-fowl 

 are Pelicans, Boobies, Noddies, Curlews, Sea-Pies, Si.c, and but 

 few of these neither." 



That is all our first bird observer has to tell us. It is not much, 

 truly. 



On the voyage over to Timor, Dampier notes that in the 

 evening " we saw ten small land-birds, about the bigness of Larks, 

 that flew away north-west." As the month was December, they 

 would hardly have been migratory birds. 



Dampier's mate, William Funnell, who was with him on the 

 St George during his voyage from 1702 to 1707, also made a few 

 remarks on curious birds. But he was a credulous, spongy- 

 minded seaman, who soaked up much that was mythical and saw 

 very little with his own eyes. I will quote his account of Birds 

 of Paradise, the skins of which he saw in the East. It is a quaint 

 mixture of fact and fantastic nonsense. " Birds of Paradise," 

 says Funnell, " are about the bigness of a Pigeon. They are of 

 various colours, and are never found or seen alive ; neither is it 

 known from whence they come. I have seen several here, 

 embalmed with spice, which preserves them from decay, and so 

 embalmed they are sent as rarities to several parts of the world. 

 It is related of these birds that when the nutmegs are ripe, which 

 is in the months of February and March, they resort to places 

 where they grow — namely, to Bunda and this place — and eat of 

 the outer rind of the nut, after which they fall down dead drunk, 

 and an innumerable company of ants gather about them, and 

 feed upon them and kill them." 



Dampier himself had seen and described a New Guinea bird, 

 probably the Crowned or Goura Pigeon, on his Roebuck woydige, in 

 1699. Contrast his plain, sober account with Funnell's credulous 

 gossip. " One of my men," he says, " killed a stately land-fowl 

 as big as the largest dung-hill cock. It was of sky colour ; only 



