314 TKAVELS IN THE EAST INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 



end of Gilolo, and the adjacent island of Morti 

 (wliicli is really but a part of the northern pen- 

 insula), the voyage to Lord North's Island, and 

 thence to the Pelew group, would not be more 

 difficult to accomplish than the piratical expeditions 

 which even the Papuans, an inferior race, are known 

 to have made since the Dutch possessed the Mo- 

 luccas. 



The taxes on paradise-birds * and other articles, 

 levied on Papua and the islands near it, are obtained 

 by a fleet which is sent out each year from the port 

 of Tidore, and which, according to the official re- 

 ports of the Dutch, carries out the sultan's orders in 

 such a manner that it is little better than a great 

 marauding expedition. 



But while we have been engaged in viewing the 

 scene before us, and recalling its history, the hours, 

 have been gliding by, and we are admonished to 

 hasten down the mountain by the approaching 

 night. When we reached the village, I was shown 

 a remarkable case of birth-mark on a young child, 

 whose father owned the summer-house we had just 

 visited high up on the mountain. A short time pre- 



* Mr. A. E. "Wallace, who has travelled more widely than any other 

 naturalist over the region where these magnificent birds are found, 

 gives the following complete list of the species now known, and the 

 places they inhabit: Arru Islands, P. apoda and P. regia; Misol, P. 

 regia and P. magnifica ,[ Wagiu, P. rubra; Salwatti, P. regia, P. mag- 

 nifica, Epimaehus alMis, and Sericulus aureus ; coast regions of New 

 Guinea generally, Epimaehus albus, and Sericulus aureus; central and 

 mountainous regions of the northern peninsula of New Guinea, Loplio- 

 rina superba, Parotia sexsetacea, Astrapia nigra, Epimaehus magnus, 

 Craspedophora niagidjica, and probably Diphylloides Wilsonii and Para 

 digalJa carunculata. 



