CHAP. XXXVI.] CAPTURING BIRDS OF PARADISE. 363 



resting a moment the first day till nightfall. The second 

 day they were always less active, although they would 

 eat as freely as before ; and on the morning of the third 

 day they were almost always found dead at the bottom 

 of the cage, without any apparent cause. Some of them 

 ate boiled rice as well as fruit and insects ; but after 

 trying many in succession, not one out of ten lived more 

 than three days. The second or third day they would be 

 dull, and in several cases they were seized with convul- 

 sions, and fell off the perch, dying a few hours after- 

 wards. I tried immature as well as full-plumaged birds, 

 but Math no better success, and at length gave it up as a 

 hopeless task, and confined my attention to preserving 

 specimens in as good a condition as possible. 



The Eed Birds of Paradise are not shot with blunt arrows, 

 as in the Aru Islands and some parts of N"ew Guinea, but 

 are snared in a very ingenious manner. A large climbing 

 Arum bears a red reticulated fruit, of which the birds are 

 very fond. The hunters fasten this fruit on a stout forked 

 stick, and provide themselves with a fine but strong cord. 

 They then seek out some tree in the forest on which these 

 birds are accustomed to perch, and climbing up it fasten 

 the stick to a branch and arrange the cord in a noose so 

 ingeniously, that when the bird comes to eat the fruit its 

 legs are caught,, and by pulling the end of the cord, which 

 hangs down to the ground, it comes free from the branch 



