330 Mr. H. D. Astley,


A COLLECTION OF RARE BIRDS FROM

NEW GUINEA.


By Hubert D. Astley, M.A.


It was a great privilege, through the kindness of Mr. and

Mrs. Johnstone, who invited me to see the beautiful collection

that Mr. Goodfellow brought back at the beginning of Septem¬

ber, to be able to examine closely such rarities ; and a privilege

also to be asked to write a description of these lovely birds.


Few there are, one cannot but believe, who would be able

to bring back to England from the mountainous districts of far

•off New Guinea, in such splendid health and condition as Mr.

Goodfellow has done.


The terrible difficulty of transport through pathless forests,

•of keeping up the supply of suitable food, and furthermore of

feeding wild-caught birds even if the food is at hand ; the keep¬

ing of many treasures upon board-ship, the varieties of climates

through which they must pass, the heat of the Red Sea, the fall

of the temperature in the Mediterranean ; and finally, may be,

the boisterous waves of the Bay, to be capped by the dampness

and changeability of poor old England, all go to make up a task

'which not many people would care to undertake.


The collection which Mrs. Johnstone has housed includes

•species of birds that have certainly never been brought to England

hitherto, or probably to Europe either. It must be remembered

that Mr. Goodfellow' has done really hard work to accomplish what

he has, spending many weeks in the midst of the melancholy and

vast forests, with the odour of rotting wood and damp vegetation

around him, and the dreary twilight caused by the giant trees

interlaced with a thick net-work of a thousand creepers.


Alone too, except for ignorant natives, who can hardly be

■described as perfect gentlemen in their habits, natives whose

“ bonne bouche” at supper time may be, and sometimes are, the

brains and other dainty portions of one of their fellow creatures !

Yet much of that is balanced by the intense interest in the beauty

of the bird-life around; beauty that is known, and at times

beauty that is unexpected in the appearance and perhaps capture

■of some new species, some Paradise Birds hitherto undiscovered.



