CHAP. XXX.] NOBLE TREE FERNS. 209 



however, expect in this excursion to see any decided differ- 

 ence in the forest or its productions, and was therefore 

 agreeably surprised. The beach was overhung with the 

 drooping branches of large trees, loaded with Orchideae, 

 ferns, and other epiphytal plants. In the forest there was 

 more variety, some parts being dry, and with trees of a 

 lower growth, while in others there were some of the most 

 beautiful palms I have ever seen, with a perfectly straight, 

 smooth, slender stem, a hundred feet high, and a crown of 

 handsome drooping leaves. But the greatest novelty and 

 most striking feature to my eyes were the tree-ferns, which, 

 after seven years spent in the tropics, I now saw in per- 

 fection for the first time. All I had hitherto met with 

 were slender species, not more than twelve feet high, and 

 they gave not the least idea of the supreme beauty of trees 

 bearing their elegant heads of fronds more than thirty feet 

 in the air, like those which were plentifully scattered about 

 this forest. There is nothing in tropical vegetation so 

 perfectly beautiful. 



My boys shot five sorts of birds, none of which we had 

 obtained during a month's shooting in Wamma. Two 

 were very pretty flycatchers, already known from New 

 Guinea ; one of them (Monarcha chrysomela), of brilliant 

 black and bright orange colours, is by some authors con- 

 sidered to be the most beautiful of all flycatchers ; the 

 other is pure white and velvety black, with a broad fleshy 



VOL. II. P 



