A VISIT TO THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 105 



new birds, including a new Podargus, a new king- 

 fisher and a new Pitta. 1 



In regard to insects I was also fairly fortunate, 

 discovering one very fine Papilio, a female, which 

 was named after me. A male specimen has not been 

 discovered yet, and it will be one of my tasks in the 

 future to search for one. No second specimen of 

 the female has yet been found. It is a dark black 

 butterfly with green spots. I obtained here also 

 a number of the Ornithoptera victoriae, a very big 

 butterfly which is still very rare. I have seen one 

 specimen sold for twenty-two guineas. The boys got 

 several specimens of this on the " blossom-trees," 

 a kind of teak growing in that locality. By collecting 

 in the mountains we got more males than females. 

 The males, as soon as they hatch out, make for the 

 mountains. 



In addition to collecting, I did a little trading in 

 turtle-shell and native shell-money, which proved 

 fairly profitable. Altogether I was very pleased 

 with my first venture in the Solomons. In the 

 district which I had covered, nobody had previously 

 collected birds, and there had been no systematic 

 collection of butterflies, so it was practically virgin soil. 



1 The new owl is Pseudoptynx solomonensis, the Podargus is 

 called P. inexpectatus, Hart., and the Pitta is the very remarkable 

 P. anerythra, Rothsch. Besides these new birds, such rarities as 

 Nasiterna nanina (a tiny little parrot), and Zoster ops metcalfei 

 were found. The birds of Ysabel are discussed and partly 

 figured in Nov. Zool, 1902. E. H, 



