v.] BIRDS OF THE JUNGLE. 97 



any other part of the world. The heat was perhaps slightly more 

 bearable than on the preceding day, but a succession of tremend- 

 ously heavy rain-showers drenched us to the skin. Such weather 

 is always most unfavourable to the naturalist, not only as regards 

 his health and comfort, but his work also. Beasts, birds, and 

 beetles alike take shelter from the pitiless rain, and photography 

 becomes an impossibility. Between the showers, however, we 

 managed to obtain a few birds, conspicuous among which was the 

 exquisite Irena, — the whole of its upper surface of the most vivid 

 cobalt blue. The feathers of this bird are sent from Borneo to 

 Canton, where the Chinese use them for making a very effective 

 blue enamel in articles of jewellery. Hanging back downwards in 

 all sorts of attitudes, searching the blossoms of the flowering trees 

 for insects, the little so-called Spider-hunters (ArachnotJiera) were 

 common enough, but difficult to shoot, owing to the great height of 

 the trees they frequented. They are remarkable for the great 

 size of the beak, which in some species is nearly as long as the 

 body. This abnormal development is no doubt of the greatest 

 assistance to them in searching the deep corollas for their insect 

 prey. The Racquet-tailed Drongo - shrike (B. hrachyphorus), a 

 striking, but tolerably common object in the forests of Borneo, 

 also fell to my gun. In many of the drongos the two outer tail 

 feathers show a greater or less amount of corkscrew twist, but 

 in this species the shaft is prolonged to a length of twelve or 

 fourteen inches, and is perfectly bare except at the end, which 

 presents a small, curved spatula of a blue-black colour. 



The soil along the banks of the Sigaliud was, as might be 

 expected, of far better quality than that in the neighbourhood of 

 Elopura. As we floated back to the Vigilant its many advantages 

 for sugar-raising were being expatiated on at length by a land- 

 prospector who formed one of our party. The moment chosen, 

 however, was not a very lucky one for the advocate of river-side 

 planting. At that instant we happened to be passing beneath an 

 overhanging tree, in the branches of which, twenty feet or more 

 VOL. II. H 



