104 A NATURALIST IN CANNIBAL LAND 



encounter, and sometimes instructing them as to 

 some special specimen that they were likely to meet, 

 and that I was anxious to obtain. At a later stage 

 in collecting, I used to have acetylene lamps for the 

 purpose of attracting moths by night. These would 

 only be of value in mountainous districts. The 

 insects collected would be packed up with naphthaline 

 to dispatch to Europe. 



My Natural History notes at Guadalcanar (1901) 

 were not very notable. I captured a female urvil- 

 liana with black, not brown, fore-wings, showing 

 distinct traces of the blue male. It is a thing I had 

 been looking for for many years, and this was the 

 nearest approach to both sexes in the one insect that 

 I had ever seen. 



From Guadalcanar I went to Ysabel Island, 

 where I discovered a number of new birds, including 

 a new large owl of a chestnut colour. The natives 

 had told me about this bird, and that it was its 

 custom to feed on the opossums in the Bush. I 

 entrusted one native boy with a gun and some 

 cartridges, asking him to obtain me a specimen, and 

 promising him as a reward, if he did, ten arm-rings, 

 which would be worth some two shillings each. He 

 was successful in obtaining one, I think on the very 

 last night before I left the island. It was quite a 

 new species, the nearest to it before discovered being 

 a bird found only in the Philippine Islands. In 

 addition to this owl I discovered some seven or eight 



