226 THE ARU ISLANDS. chap. xxxi. 



iuteresting sounds, I realize my position as the first 

 European who has ever lived for months together in the 

 Aru islands, a place which I had hoped rather than 

 expected ever to visit. I think how many besides myself 

 have longed to reach these almost fairy realms, and to see 

 with their own eyes the many wonderful and beautiful 

 things which I am daily encountering. But now Ali 

 and Baderoon are up and getting ready their guns and 

 ammunition, and little Baso has his fire lighted and is 

 boiling my coffee, and I remember that I had a black 

 cockatoo brought in late last night, which I must skin 

 immediately, and so I jump up and begm my day's work 

 very hapjiily. 



This cockatoo is the first I have seen, and is a great 

 prize. It has a rather small and weak body, long weak 

 legs, large wings, and an enormously developed head, 

 ornamented with a magnificent crest, and armed with a 

 sharp-pointed hooked bill of immense size and strength. 

 The plumage is entirely black, but has all over it the 

 curious powdery white secretion characteristic of cockatoos. 

 The cheeks are bare, and of an intense blood-red colour. 

 Instead of the harsh scream of the white cockatoos, its 

 voice is a somewhat plaintive whistle. The tongue is a 

 curious organ, being a slender fleshy cylinder of a deep 

 red colour, terminated by a horny black plate, furrowed 

 across and somewhat prehensile. The whole tongue has 



