164 A NATURALIST IN CANNIBAL LAND 



temperature of the seasons. It is true that New 

 Guinea is south of the line, so that the seasons there 

 are the opposite of those in Europe, but the chief 

 difference is that between the wet season and the 

 dry, and doubtless the Birds of Paradise breed in 

 the season which coincides with our autumn, and 

 continue the same periodicity in this country." 



Birds from Australia and the neighbouring islands 

 seem to preserve their original habits and seasons 

 stubbornly when transported to England. Thus the 

 black Australian swan refuses to conform to the 

 English climate, and hatches out its brood in the 

 midst of the cold weather. 



The birds probably would have been more plentiful 

 for the collector at the foot of mountains instead 

 of at that high altitude. I fancy that it is an 

 easy matter for mountain birds to get through the 

 various gaps and gorges in the ranges down to lower 

 levels, when it would not be nearly so easy for the flat- 

 country birds to ascend to higher levels. One may 

 get mountain birds on lower slopes, but not low- 

 country birds high up. I got one specimen of the 

 wattled finch (male), of which I had got previously 

 a pair at Eleda. 1 



1 This most interesting and very rare bird is called Eulacestoma 

 nigropectus, and was discovered in 1895 by Captain Armit and 

 Mr. Guise, who made an expedition to Mount Maneao in the 

 mountains of British New Guinea. The bird is not really a finch, 

 but belongs to the Laniidae or shrikes. See Ibis, 1904, p. 373, 

 and PL IX, where Meek's specimens are figured. E. H. 



