276 WILSON. Papua, the Land of Birds. K'^Apn'i 



nothing to do, I found a secluded cove, where many birds used 

 to come down to the sea for salt, an essential for birds as for 

 men and animals, as any good observer of birds who lives near 

 the sea can tell you. Here came Fruit- Pigeons and Honeyeaters 

 at constant intervals, usually to pick the dry salt from holes in 

 the rocks, where evaporation had left a deposit, and it was here 

 one sunset that the doings of the Ravens drew my attention. I 

 was surprised to see that every Raven on the island flew over to 

 the mainland at night to roost ; but I never saw any other bird 

 go with them. Their morning arrival was timed for 5.43, when 

 the first croak came floating over the still lagoon. 



The common Australian Willie Wagtail is everywhere in 

 Papua, and also the Cuckoo Shrike, Friar Bird and Welcome 

 Swallow, while the Double-banded Dottrel and Spur-winged 

 Plover can be seen and heard, so an Australian is soon reminded 

 of home. 



Night is alw ays lively with the chug-chug of answering Night- 

 jars, the whirr of passing Teal, or the hoot of an Owl, and the 

 chirrup of that moonlight singer, the Gecko, a small lizard, whose 

 call, when I first heard it, made me ask what bird it was, to the 

 amusement of the natives. 



A beautiful P>ee-eater is comnKjn ; very much like the Aus- 

 tralian kind, his flight over, around, and into a flame tree in full 

 bloom is a vivid delight. Every patch of grass country is full 

 of the Coucal (not Centropus phasianhius, but a darker kind), 

 one of the world's poorest flyers, who fills the air with "who- 

 whooing" in different keys, and becomes almost as monotonous 

 as the Brain-fever Bird (which I pursued all over the place, but 

 never saw; only his fearful cry was ever prominent). The 

 Coucal seems to be forgetting the art of flying, the effort of 

 reaching a height of 10 feet to the fronds of a palm-tree seems 

 to be almost loo much for it. 



While PajHia is .so full of birds, it is curious to see how little 

 to the eastward birds have found their way. The eastern Pacific 

 Islands are, except for sea birds, almost empty of therr. : there 

 are some large islands there where land species are only repre- 

 .sented by three varieties. I speak from hearsay that the Hono- 

 lulu museum contains four specimens only of land birds, and yet 

 is complete. T am liable here to contradiction. 



Were I to close without a tribute to the Birds of Paradise, I 

 w^ould be as one talking of Eg>'pt without its Nile. The Para- 

 diseidae are ])eculiar to I'ajnia and the surrounding islands and 

 the eastern coast region of Aiistralia. and between 70 and 80 dif- 

 ferent species have been described. 



Personally T saw only two kinds in a wild state, but thnt was 

 because time forbade my penetrating far enough inland to find 

 them in vast numbers as is possible. The word Paradise means 

 "a place with a wall round it," in which meaning it applies to 

 the bird, who.se export from British territory is forbidden, and 

 that with great care; and also to the fact that all but a few white 

 men have never seen these birds alive outside of an aviarv. 



