ANOTHER TRIP TO THE SOLOMONS 149 



visits from friendly neighbouring villages. Advan- 

 tage would always be taken of these visits to hold a 

 social dance. The village square would be decorated 

 for the occasion with green trees and flowers. There 

 would be dances for the men and dances for the 

 women and athletic exercises for the young men. 

 On the occasion of a festival of this kind a guest-house 

 is built, big enough to accommodate the 200 or 300 

 people who come from the neighbouring villages. 

 I was never quite able to understand the system on 

 which this mutual hospitality was arranged, but the 

 occasions for dances and festivals were the potato 

 harvests, the yam harvests, and such other occasions. 



I stayed at my camp in the district until about 

 May 1905, and then descended to the coast to Port 

 Moresby to send away my collections. Then I went 

 back for a short time to finish up a collection. On 

 this short second trip I did not get very many 

 specimens of lepidoptera, but the natives brought 

 me numbers of Birds of Paradise and other birds. 



The natives in the hills of New Guinea are very 

 clever at snaring birds, adopting many different 

 methods for different kinds. One method is to make 

 a kind of bird-lime out of the gutta-percha of the 

 breadfruit tree. This is used for the smaller kinds 

 of birds. For ground-birds the natives employ traps 

 that are weighted with stones and baited With worms. 

 The bird enters the trap to eat the worm and is 

 crushed and killed by the falling of the stones. To 

 snare Bower-Birds and Birds of Paradise the natives 



