862 WAIGIOU. [chap. XXXVI. 



ever come with one, but would tie it by the leg to a 

 stick, and put it in their house till they caught another. 

 The poor creature would make violent efforts to escape, 

 would get among the ashes, or hang suspended by the leg 

 tni the limb was swollen and half-putrefied, and sometimes 

 die of starvation and worry. One had its beautiful head all 

 defiled by pitch from a dammar torch ; another had been 

 so long dead that its stomach was turning green. Luckily, 

 however, the skin and plumage of these birds is so firm 

 and strong, that they bear washing and cleaning better 

 than almost any other sort ; and I was generally able to 

 clean them so well that they did not perceptibly differ 

 from those I had shot myself. 



Some few were brought me the same day they were 

 caught, and I had an opportimity of examining them in 

 all their beauty and vivacity. As soon as I found they 

 were generally brought alive, I set one of my men to 

 make a large bamboo cage with troughs for food and 

 water, hoping to be able to keep some of them. I got 

 the natives to bring me branches of a fruit they were 

 very fond of, and I was pleased to find they ate it 

 greedily, and would also take any number of live grass- 

 hoppers I gave them, stripping off" the legs and wings, and 

 then swallowing them. They drank plenty of water, and 

 were in constant motion, jumping about the cage from 

 perch to perch, clinging on the top and sides, and rarely 



