Native Bird-Stuffers. 555 



ing the whole year, except during a short period of moulting, 

 as with most other birds. 



The Great Bird of Paradise is very active and vigorous, 

 and seems to be in constant motion all day long. It is very 

 abundant, small flocks of females and young males being con- 

 stantly met wdth ; and though the f uU-plumaged birds are less 

 plentiful, their loud cries, which are heard daUy, show that 

 they also are very numerous. Their note is, " Wawk-wawk- 

 wawk — Wok, wok-wok," and is so loud and shrill as to be heard 

 a great distance, and to form the most prominent and charac- 

 teristic animal sound in the Aru Islands. The mode of nidifi- 

 cation is unknown ; but the natives told me that the nest was 

 formed of leaves placed on an ant's nest, or on some projecting 

 limb of a very lofty tree, and they believe that it contains only 

 one young bird. The egg is quite unknown, and the natives 

 declared they had never 'seen it; and a very high reward of- 

 fered for one by a Dutch official did not meet with success. 

 They moult aboiit January or February, and in May, when 

 they are in full j^lumage, the males assemble early in the morn- 

 ing to exhibit themselves in the singular manner already de- 

 scribed at p. 466. This habit enables the natives to obtain 

 specimens with comparative ease. As soon as they find that 

 the birds have fixed upon a tree on which to assemble, they 

 build a little shelter of palm leaves in a convenient place 

 among the branches, and the hunter ensconces himself in it 

 before daylight, armed with his bow and a number of arrows 

 terminating in a round knob. A boy waits at the foot of the 

 tree, and when the birds come at sunrise, and a sufficient 

 number have assembled, and have begun to dance, the hunter 

 shoots with his blunt arrow so strongly as to stun the bird, 

 which drops down, and is secured and killed by the boy with- 

 out its plumage being injured by a drop of blood. The rest 

 take no notice, and fall one after another till some of them take 

 the alai-m. (See Frontispiece.) 



The native mode of preserving them is to cut off the wings 

 and feet, and then skin the body up to the beak, taking out 

 the skull. A stout stick is then run up through the specimen 

 coming out at the mouth. Round this some leaves are stuff- 

 ed, and the whole is wrapped wp in a palm spathe and dried 

 in the smoky hut. By this plan the head, which is really large. 



