THE SOLOMONS AGAIN 187 



female has white in the hind-wings while the male 

 has the same colour in both wings. 1 But as I have 

 said I was unable to collect properly on the mountains, 

 as the natives " backed out " of carrying, and as 

 I was ill I had to work from the shore, my boys 

 going up the mountains every day until they tired 

 of getting nothing. The scrub was all second growth 

 away from the fringe of the coast. There was no 

 virgin forest so far as my boys penetrated, and, 

 consequently, little hope of new discoveries. 



I got no new birds additional to those I had ob- 

 tained previously. The Microgoura I was satisfied 

 does not occur on Bougainville, though I was told 

 by native boys that it is found on both Ysabel and 

 Malaita. 2 



Leaving Bougainville I sent away my collections 

 and went down to Vella Levella, where I put my 

 vessel up in a very small anchorage in a place that 

 was infested with crocodiles. These crocodiles never 

 molested me, and they came in handy when I wanted 

 meat for my boys. I made a camp ashore near the 

 beach and started collecting, getting very little that 

 was new in lepidoptera, but it was a very picturesque 

 place to stay. The coast line is broken into number- 

 less tiny bays studded with little islands of great 

 beauty. There are some thousands of islands, some 



1 Papilio mendana acous Ribbe (1898). K. J. 



2 This extraordinary pigeon (Microgoura meeki) is fully de- 

 scribed and figured in Nov. Zool., 1904. 



