CHAP. XXXIV.] SCARCITY OF PARADISE BIRBS. 321 



of fish or vegetable was taken on board, and I had often 

 to make a small parroqiiet serve for two meals. My men 

 now returned from Amberbaki, but, alas ! brought me 

 almost nothing. They had visited several villages, and 

 even went two days' journey into the interior, but could 

 find no skins of Birds of Paradise to purchase, except the 

 common kind, and very few even of those. The birds 

 found were the same as at Dorey, but were still scarcer. 

 None of the natives anywhere near the coast shoot or 

 prepare Birds of Paradise, which come from far in the 

 interior over two or three ranges of mountains, passing 

 by barter from village to village till they reach the sea. 

 There the natives of Dorey buy them, and on their return 

 home sell them to the Bugis or Ternate traders. It is 

 therefore hopeless for a traveller to go to any particular 

 place on the coast of New Guinea where rare Paradise 

 birds may have been bought, in hopes of obtaining freshly 

 killed specimens from the natives ; and it also shows the 

 scarcity of these birds in any one locality, since from the 

 Amberbaki district, a celebrated place, where at least five 

 or six species have been procured, not one of the rarer 

 ones has been obtained this year. The Prince of Tidore, 

 who would certainly have got them if any were to be had, 

 was obKged to put up with a few of the common yellow- 

 ones. I think it probable that a longer residence at Dorey, 

 a little farther in the interior, might show that several 

 VOL. II. Y 



