142 A NATURALIST IN CANNIBAL LAND 



gorgeous head-dresses. If they had had any means of 

 putting the frail wings of butterflies to decorative 

 use they would doubtless have done so. I found them 

 usually to be sympathetic and intelligent collectors. 

 They, however, cannot see the use of hunting for 

 gold. 



I captured the male of the new Ornithoptera 

 chimcera at last. It was a most beautiful insect, all 

 black and gold ; with three long stripes on the fore- 

 wing, hind-wing semi-transparent and gold, and 

 inclined to be tailed. It was as large as the 

 female common Ornithoptera and very broad across 

 fore-wing. I felt more pleased than if I had been 

 left a fortune when the male specimen came in, and 

 I astonished the successful boy with the amount of 

 largesse he got. He had two shillings he knew the 

 value of English currency two tins of English bacon 

 and five sticks of tobacco. A fine discovery of that 

 sort stirs the heart of a collector. He forgets hard- 

 ships and troubles, and remembers only that he has 

 given something to science, taken from Nature one 

 more of her secrets. " A little secret ! " some may 

 say, but naturalists do not think so. 



To see this insect in flight was fine. The hind- 

 wings are (when the insect is alive or fresh) almost a 

 transparent gold, but I notice after it has been dried 

 that the transparency somewhat disappears. I saw 

 one flying about four or five hundred feet above the 

 ground, and the gold hind- wings were so conspicuous 



