372 



NA TURE 



[Fed. 17, I ; 



in perpetual watering. There is of course a fort, and 

 equally of course a ' p/cin.' The cemetery is significantly 

 full. Almost all the tombs are kept whitewashed, and as 

 many of them are curious chapel-like erections with flying 

 buttresses, the effect at a distance is something between 

 an ice palace and a clothes'-drying ground. The houses 

 of the Dutch residents, shadowed in peepul or galela trees, 

 stand back a little distance from the road, long, low, and 

 cool, with thick white posts at their entrance gates. \ 

 long avenue of magnificent overarching trees leads 

 eastwards from the pier, adown which the Governor may 

 be seen driving any afternoon in a four-in-hand, with sky- 

 blue reins. It is lighted by means of lamps hung midway 

 between the trees, for the Hollander, even although j;as 

 may be unattainable, considers civilisation incomplete 

 without these adjuncts. Then too there is the club, with 

 its zinc-topped tables set out (V^/i'-fashion beneath the 

 trees. It is called the ' Harmonic,' as is every Dutch 

 club in Malaysia, and within all is dark and deserted and 

 cool during the mid-day heat. The servants are curled 

 up asleep behind the bar or in the corners of the rooms, 

 and would stare in dumb astonishment at the apparition of 

 a European ; for the early business of the day over, and 

 the /-/js/ tafcl, or lunch, despatched, the white residents 

 get into \\\t:\x pyjamas and take a siesta till three or four 

 o'clock. A couple of hours or so are then devoted to 

 business, and towards sunset tlie male portion of the 

 population meet at the 'Harmonie'to chat and drink 

 pijtjcs. Billiards is the most violent exercise taken ; 

 cricket, bowls, and lawn-tennis are unknown" (vol. ii. 

 p. 156). 



Among the pleasant reminiscences of the travellers 

 about their travels in the north of Celebes will doubtless 

 be those of their visits to the Tondano Lake with its 

 pretty waterfall ; to Talisse Island, where at " Wallace 

 Bay " the habits of the maleo {McgacLphalon iiiah-o) were 

 observed, and a good store of their eggs and bodies 

 were collected ; and to Kema, where a great babiroussa 

 hunt was held. 



The name Moluccas, at one time restricted to the little 

 chain of volcanic islets lying off the western coast of 

 Gilolo, of which Ternate is the chief, now includes all the 

 islands between Celebes and the Papuan group. As re- 

 gards magnificence of scenery, Ternate is perhaps the 

 finest harbour in the Dutch Indies. The Resident, Mr. 

 Morris, kept a large aviary of rare birds, amongst which 

 the gems were two superb soecimens— both full-plumaged 

 males — of the twelve-wired bird of paradise. These ex- 

 quisite creatures were fed on the fruit of the pandanus, 

 with an occasional cockroach as a hoivie bouclic. " The 

 feelings of admiration with which I watched these birds, 

 which are among the most beautiful of all living beings, 

 I need not," says the writer, " attempt to describe." 

 The concluding chapters of this volume bring us to New 

 Guinea, the very home of paradise birds The portion of 

 this great island visited was the western half, that claimed 

 by the Dutch : which, from the variation in species from 

 island to island, and the peculiarity of these birds of 

 paradise, is perhaps the most interesting to a natu- 

 ralist. A safe anchorage was secured at the extreme 

 east end of the Island of Batanta, in "Marchesa Bay." 

 The first ramble on shore was unsuccessful. Scram- 

 bling over the mangroves' slimy roots, and struggling 

 up to their knees in liquid ooze, they found that the 

 land was hard to reach ; the shore rose steeply from 

 the sea ; and the dripping wet jungle made progress all the 

 more difficult. The party returned disappointed to the 

 yacht, to find that some of the hunters were already back, 

 equally empty-handed. Presently, however, " Usman and 

 his coinpagnoii dc chassc appeared triumphant, carefully 

 carrying a prize that we had hoped, but hardly expected, to 

 obtain— the curious and exquisitely lovely little Diphyl- 

 lodes ivilsoni, smallest of all the birds of paradise. Be- 

 hind the head, a ruff of canary-coloured feathers stands 



erect above the scarlet back and wings. The breast is 

 covered by a shield of glossy green plui'nes, which towards 

 the throat are marked with metallic green, and violet spots 

 of extraordinary brilliancy. The two centre feathers of 

 the tail, prolonged for five or six inches beyond the others, 

 cross one another, and are curved into a complete circle of 

 bright steely purple. But the chief peculiarity of the bird 

 is the head, which is bald from the vertex backwards, the 

 bare skin being of the brightest imaginable cobalt blue (the 

 figure in Gould's ' Birds of New Guinea ' gives no notion 

 of the extreme brilliancy of the colouring of this part). 

 The bimrre effect thus produced is still further heightened 

 by two fine lines of feathers which, running lengthways and 

 from side to side, form a dark cross upon the brilliant 

 azure background. I could hardly make up my mind to 

 skin this little ornithological rainbow, whose exquisite 

 plumage it seemed almost a sacrilege to disarrange, but 

 the climate of New Guinea allows of but little delay in this 

 operation, and I set about my task at once. The bird had 

 been scarcely injured by the shot, and I succeeded in 

 making a perfect skin of it '' (vol. ii. p. 254). 



Dorei Bay, well known as the settlement of the Dutch 

 missionaries, and the residence of Mr. Wallace in 1858, 

 was the next station. .Some few miles south of Dorei 

 Bay is Andai,a small village nestling atthe foot of the Arfak 

 Mountains. The dense forests that clothe these mountains 

 are the favoured haunts of such magnificent paradise 

 birds as the great velvet-black Epimachus, with its tail 

 a yard in length ; the Astrapia, in its uniform of dark 

 violet, faced with golden-green and copper ; and fhe 

 orange- coloured Xanthome! us. There D'Albertis had 

 shot his Drepanornis, with its two fan-like tufts, one 

 flame-cloured, the other tipped with metallic violet ; and 

 there Beccari braved the climate and made such splendid 

 collections. The summits of the mountains were less than 

 ten miles from where the yacht was, and yet this land of 

 promise could not be entered. Our readers must seek the 

 reason why in the narrative ; here we can only add that 

 the homeward voyage had begun. 



In so short a sketch it is simply impossible to do more 

 than give the reader an idea of what he may expect to 

 find within the pages of these volumes. Students of 

 geography, ethnology, and. above all, zoology, will dis- 

 cover therein a great deal that is of interest, and also much 

 that is novel ; and every reader will be pleased by 

 the writer's freshness of style and keen enjoyment of 

 Nature. To enjoy travelling, especially in the tropics, 

 one must be of an equable, not to say of a cheerful, 

 frame of mind. We close the perusal of Dr. Guillemard's 

 delightful volumes with the impression that the company 

 on board the yacht MarcJicsa was certainly of this kind. 



In several appendixes to Volume II. there are lists of 

 the birds met with in the various regions visited, and of 

 the shells. There is also a list of the Rhopalocera collected 

 in the Eastern Archipelago, and of the languages of Sulu, 

 of Waigiou, and of Jobi Island. Tables are given of 

 the total export in 1884 of the chief articles of produce 

 in the Netherlands India, North and South Celebes, 

 Amboyna, and Ternate. 



THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



T^HE annual Report of Prof Baird, Secretary of the 

 '- Smithsonian Institution, has just been issued. It 

 relates to the period from July I, 1SS5, to the close of 

 June 1886, and includes, in addition to the account of the 

 operations of the Institution itself, a summary of the work 

 done by the branches of the public service placed by 

 Congress under its charge, namely, the National Museum 

 and the Bureau of Ethnology. To this is added a sketch 

 of the work of the U.S. Fish Commission, which is also 

 under Prof. Baird's charge, and of that of the U.S. 

 Geological Survey, which, although independent of the 

 Smithsonian Institution, is in close relation with it by 



