CHAPTER VI 



A VISIT TO THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 



IT was in 1898 that I turned my back on civilisation 

 again, determined that this time I should explore 

 some territory new to the naturalist, and that I 

 should not be delayed or thwarted by any experiments 

 in navigation, an art of which I had now mastered 

 the rudiments. 



I went round to the site of my old camp at Nadi 

 for the purpose of recruiting boys as collectors. I 

 had a warm welcome from the natives there, who 

 remembered me perfectly. Having got a good gang 

 of boys to help in the work of collecting, I made an 

 expedition to Milne Bay, where I designed a camp 

 of a somewhat more permanent type than any to 

 which I had been as yet accustomed. We built 

 not only a native house, but also laid out a garden, 

 planting in addition to the native taro and yams, 

 some beans and melons. 



The boys whom I had brought with me I used to 

 send out collecting both birds and insects. It was 

 here that I made my second discovery of a new 

 Ornithoptera, the tailed Troides meridionalis. It is 

 a very beautiful butterfly, green and black and gold 

 in colour, and is still very rare. Another most 



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