. BIRDS OF PARADISE. 141 



Europe. These people formerly hunted the birds 

 to decorate the turbans of their chiefs. They call 

 them mambefore in their language, and kill them 

 during the night by climbing the trees where 

 they perch, and shooting them with arrows made 

 for the purpose, and very short, which they make 

 with the stem of the leaves of a palm. . . . All the 

 art of the inhabitants is directed to taking off the 

 feet, skinning, thrusting a little stick through the 

 body, and drying it in the smoke. Some, more 

 adroit, at the solicitation of the Chinese mer- 

 chants, dry them with the feet on. The price of 

 a Bird of Paradise among the Papuans of the 

 coast, is a piastre at least. We killed, during 

 our stay at New Guinea, a score of these birds, 

 which I prepared, for the most part. 



" The Emerald, when alive, is of the size of a 

 common Jay ; its beak and its feet are bluish ; the 

 irides are of a brilliant yellow; its motions are 

 lively and agile ; and, in general, it never perches 

 except upon the summit of the most lofty trees. 

 When it descends, it is for the purpose of eating 

 the fruits of the lesser trees, or when the sun in 

 full power compels it to seek the shade. It has a 

 fancy for certain trees, and makes the neighbour- 

 hood re-echo with its piercing voice. The cry 

 became fatal, because it indicated to us the move- 

 ments of the bird. We were on the watch for it, 

 and it was thus that we came to kill these birds ; 

 for when a male Bird of Paradise has perched, 

 and hears a rustling in the silence of the forest, 

 he is silent, and does not move. His call is voike, 

 voike, voike, voiko, strongly articulated. The cry 

 of the female is the same, but she raises it much 

 more feebly. The latter, deprived of the bril- 



