48 BEAUTIFUL BIRDS 
black man is very quick and active—which is what 
most savages are—and he can climb trees almost as 
well as a monkey. When he finds one of those trees 
where the Great Birds of Paradise have their parties, 
their ‘‘Sacalelies”” (that is what /e calls them, it 1s a 
word that means a dancing-party), he climbs up into 
it early in the morning, before it is daylight, and 
waits for them to come. It does not matter how tall 
the tree is (and this kind of tree is very tall), or how 
dark it may be, this naked Papuan savage climbs 
up it quite easily and without slipping, just like a 
monkey. He takes up with him some leafy branches 
of another tree, and with these he makes a little 
screen to sit under, so that the Birds of Paradise shall 
not see him. Besides this, he takes his bow and 
arrows to shoot the poor birds with, for he does not 
use a gun, which would make too much noise, and, 
besides, the shot would hurt the beautiful plumage. 
The arrows do not hurt the plumage as the shot 
would, because at the end of each one there is a piece 
of wood, shaped something like an acorn, but as large 
as a teacup, and the large end of it makes what 
would be the point of an ordinary arrow. When the 
poor birds are hit with that great, smooth piece of 
wood they are killed, because it hits them so hard, 
but their plumage is not hurt at all, for nothing has 
gone into the skin, or torn the feathers. 
