LIFE IN LONDON 393 



white man and the timely distribution of a few presents prevailed; 

 and on showing the knives, hatchets, and beads he was willing to give 

 to those who accompanied him, peace was restored, and the next day, 

 travelling over a frightfully rugged country, they reached the villages 

 of the mountaineers. Here Mr. Allen remained a month, without any 

 interpreter through whom he could understand a word or communi- 

 cate a want. However, by signs and presents and a pretty liberal 

 barter, he got on very well, some of them accompanying him every 

 day in the forest to shoot and receiving a small present when he was 

 successful. 



In the grand matter of the paradise birds, however, little was done. 

 Only one additional species was found, the Seleucides alba (or twelve- 

 wired bird of paradise), of which he had already obtained a specimen 

 on the island of Salwatty on his way to Sorong; so that at this much- 

 vaunted place in the mountains, and among the bird-catching natives, 

 nothing fresh was obtained. The P. magnifica, they said, was found 

 there, but was rare; the Sericulus aureus also rare; Epimachus magnus, 

 Astrapia nigra, Parotia sexsetacea, and Lophorina superba not found 

 there, but only much further in the interior, as well as the lovely little 

 lory, Charmosyna papuana. Moreover, neither at Sorong nor at Sal- 

 watty could he obtain a single native skin of the rarer species. 



Thus ended my search after these beautiful birds. Five voyages to 

 different parts of the district they inhabit, each occupying in its prepa- 

 ration and execution the larger part of a year, have produced me only 

 five species out of the thirteen known to exist in New Guinea. The 

 kinds obtained are those that inhabit the districts near the coasts of 

 New Guinea and its islands, the remainder seeming to be strictly 

 confined to the central mountain-ranges of the northern peninsula; 

 and our reseaches at Dorey and Amberbaki, near one end of this 

 peninsula, and at Salwatty and Sorong, near the other, enable me to 

 decide with some certainty on the native country of these rare and 

 lovely birds, good specimens of which have never yet been seen in 

 Europe. It must be considered as somewhat extraordinary that during 

 five years' residence and travel in Celebes, the Moluccas, and New 

 Guinea, I should never have been able to purchase skins of half the 

 species which Lesson, forty years ago, obtained during a few weeks 

 in the same countries. I believe that all, except the common species 

 of commerce, are now much more difficult to obtain than they were 

 even twenty years ago ; and I impute it principally to their having 

 been sought after by the Dutch officials through the Sultan of Tidore. 

 The chiefs of the annual expeditions to collect tribute have had orders 

 to get all the rare sorts of paradise birds; and as they pay little or 

 nothing for them (it being sufficient to say they are for the Sultan), 

 the head men of the coast villages would for the future refuse to pur- 

 chase them from the mountaineers, and confine themselves instead to 

 the commoner species, which are less sought after by amateurs, but 



