i 1 4 TRE BIRDS OF PARADISE. [ch. xxxviii. 



their stomachs but a brown sweet liquid, probably the 

 nectar of the flowers on which they had been feeding. 

 They certainly, however, eat both fruit and insects, for a 

 specimen which I saw alive on board a Dutch steamer ate 

 cockroaches and papaya fruit voraciously. This bird had 

 the curious habit of resting at noon with the bill pointing 

 vertically upwards. It died on the passage to Eatavia, 

 and I secured the body and formed a skeleton, which 

 shows indisputably that it is really a Bird of Paradise. 

 The tongue is very long and extensible, but flat and a 

 little fibrous at the end, exactly like the true Paradiseas. 



In the island of Salwatty, the natives search in the 

 forests till they find the sleeping place of this bird, which 

 they know by seeing its dung upon the ground. It is 

 generally in a low bushy tree. At night they climb up 

 the tree, and either shoot the birds with blunt arrows, or 

 even catch them alive with a cloth. In New Guinea they 

 are caught by placing snares on the trees frequented by 

 them, in the same way as the Eed Paradise Birds are 

 caught in Waigiou, and which has already been described 

 at page 362. 



The great Epimaque, or Long-tailed Paradise Bird (Epi- 

 machus magnus), is another of these wonderful creatures, 

 onlj' known by the imperfect skins prepared by the 

 natives. In its dark velvety plumage, glossed with bronze 



