74 PYGMIES AND PAPUANS 



" to the coolies, and by that time it is well on into 



" the afternoon. Wet wood is somehow coaxed 



" into boiling a kettle and I get a cup of tea, very 



" good. At six o'clock the meal of the day, rice 



" or a tin, but one eats very little on these journeys. 



" After dinner a book and tobacco and to bed about 



" nine o'clock, or earlier if the mosquitoes are 



" troublesome. It does not compare favourably 



" with being ' on safari ' in Africa, and I frequently 



" wish myself back on one of those interminable 



" roads which I have so often cursed." 



But it must not be supposed that there were not 



occasional pleasant moments, which to some extent 



were compensation for the monotony of those days. 



Sometimes you saw a Crowned Pigeon (Gotira sclateri) 



by the water's edge, and by paddling quietly you could 



approach within a few yards before it flew lazily across 



the river and alighted on a low branch. The Crowned 



Pigeon is one of the handsomest of New Guinea birds ; 



it is as big as a large domestic fowl, of an uniform mauve 



grey colour with a large white patch on the wings, and 



on its head is a crest of delicate grey plumes, which it 



opens and shuts like a fan. These birds feed mostly 



on fruits, but they also eat small molluscs and crabs, 



which they pick up on the river bank. As they were 



almost the only eatable birds in the country, we killed 



a good many of them, but their numbers appeared to 



be in no way diminished when we left the country ; 



the flesh is white and excessively dry. 



The little red King Bird of Paradise [Cicinmirus 

 regiiis) is heard calling everywhere, and from the upper 



