92 A NATURALIST IN CANNIBAL LAND 



of course, with butterflies. However, they were right 

 for once. 



I expected to get great assistance from the natives, 

 but they brought in only a few lizards and a Cuscus. 

 Among the birds I got the most notable were two 

 species of brown and grey Pachycephala ; 1 the Pitta 

 meeki is something similar to the Fergusson Island 

 bird, but slightly smaller, with rufous cap and nape 

 and with greenish brown back, belly bright red as 

 other species. We took only one Ornithoptera, a male 

 (similar to the St. Aignan one), and I saw one 

 female only. One can imagine how scarce they were 

 when with five men collecting we only captured one 

 specimen and saw one other. 



After some two months at Rossel Island I made my 

 way to Sudest, where there was at the time a great 

 fleet of pearl-divers, the divers being white men and 

 Manilla men, that being before the coming of the 

 Japanese diver. In those days the life of the pearl- 

 sheller was easy. The natives had no idea of the 

 value of pearls. They could not be pierced, as shells 

 were, with the native drills : and Nature had not left 

 holes in them, so they could not be strung on to an arm- 

 let. When the first white trader appeared he is credited 



1 They were both described as new by myself and called 

 P. rosseliana and P. meeki. The Endoliisoma was also a new 

 species, and described by me as E. rostratum, and there were 

 also a new fan-tailed Flycatcher (Rhipidura louisiadensis), another 

 new small Flycatcher (Gerygone rosseliana), a new Myzomela 

 (M. albigula), and a new form of Parrot (Geoffroyas aruensis 

 cyanicarpus). E. H. 



