XIII.] CYPRIPEDIUM GAEDINERI. 309 



or two longer, become eroded on the inner web, and somewhat 

 curved, so that the feather is sickle -shaped. This curvature 

 becomes after a tune more pronounced, ultimately assuming the 

 shape of the perfect feather, though its colour still remains un- 

 changed. The shaft then becomes completely denuded of feather, 

 and the terminal disc acquires the brilliant metallic green colouring 

 of the perfect plume. This process occurs only during tlie first 

 change of plumage from the immature state — a change which is 

 produced by the gradual assumption of colour in previously existing 

 feathers, and not by moult. Afterwards, at the yearly moult, the 

 prolonged tail-feathers make their appearance in very peculiar 

 hook -shaped feather -cases, on the rupture of which the plume 

 discloses itself in its complete state. 



In the jungle near the village there were few striking flowers, 

 or at least few that we had not met with elsewhere. A Nepenthes, 

 which grew in some abundance, with dwarfed and ungracefully- 

 shaped pitchers, was, however, new to us, as was also a Cypripedium, 

 of which we found a single specimen only, growing at the iDottom 

 of a large tree. This latter orchid was very handsome both as 

 regards shape and colouring, the flower-stalk bearing three or four 

 blossoms with pendulous ribbon-shaped petals, twisted into a 

 graceful spiral, and tinged with purple. The dorsal sepal was 

 marked with alternate stripes of dark brown and yellow, while the 

 lip was of a paler shade of the same colour, less distinctly striated.^ 



Numbers of canoes surrounded the Marchcsa from morning till 

 night during our visit. Such a thing as a built boat is unknown, 

 and all are " dug-outs," made by burning out the trunks of trees 

 with charcoal. This is an operation over which much time and 

 labour is spent, and after the finishing touches have been put to 



^ This orchid, which I have since learnt to be a species new to science, is allied 

 to Cijpripcdium philippinense (Reichb. ), figured in the " Bot. Mag." pi. 5508, but 

 the twisted petals are very much shorter, being only twice the length of the lip, and 

 the colouring of the sepal of a far brighter yellow. I have named it C'ljpi'ipcdmm 

 (jardineri after my friend Mr. Walter Gardiner of Clare College, Cambridge. The 

 genus Cypripedium, I believe, has not been previously recorded from New Guinea. 



