PARA DI SEA SAN GUINEA. 



Papuans who catch and preserve them. I hired a small outrigger boat for this journey, and left one of my men 

 to guard my house and goods. # # # * My first business was to send for the men who were accustomed to catch 

 the Birds of Paradise. Several came ; and I showed them my hatchets, beads, knives, and handkerchiefs, and 

 explained to them as well as I could by signs the price I would give for fresh-killed specimens. It is the universal 

 custom to pay for every thing in advance ; but only one man ventured to take goods to the value of two birds. The 

 rest were suspicious, and wanted to see the result of the first bargain with the strange white man, the only one 

 who had ever come to their island. After three days my man brought me the first bird — a very fine specimen, and 

 alive, but tied up in a small bag, and consequently its tail- and wing-feathers very much crushed and injured. I 

 tried to explain to him, and to others that came with him, that I wanted them as perfect as possible, and that 

 they should either kill them or keep them on a perch with a string to their leg. As they were now apparently 

 satisfied that all was fair, and that I had no ulterior designs upon them, six others took away goods, some for one 

 bird, some for more, and one for as many as six. They said they had to go a long way for them, and that they 

 w r ould come back as soon as they caught any. At intervals of a few days or a week some of them would return, 

 bringing me one or more birds ; but though they did not bring any more in bags, there was not much improvement 

 in their condition. As they caught them a long way off in the forest, they would scarcely ever come with one, 

 but would tie it by the legs to a stick, and put it in their house till they caught another. The poor creature wordd 

 make violent efforts to escape, would get among the ashes, or hang suspended by the leg till the limb was swollen 

 or 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 opportunity 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 grasshoppers 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 to the 

 top and sides, and rarely resting a moment the first day tiU 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 fruits 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 convulsions and fell off the perch, dying a few 

 hours afterwards. I tried immature as well as full-plumaged birds, but with 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 Red Birds of Paradise are not shot with blunt arrows, as in the Aru Islands and some parts of New 

 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 and brings down the bird. Sometimes, when food is 

 abundant elsewhere, the hunter sits from morning till night under his tree, with the cord in his hand and even 

 for two or three whole days in succession, without even getting a bite ; while, on the other hand, if very 

 lucky, he may get two or three birds in a day. There are only eight or ten men in Bessir who practise 

 this art, which is unknown anywhere else in the island. I determined, therefore, to stay as long as possible, 

 as my only chance of getting a good series of specimens ; and although I was nearly starved, every thing eatable 

 by civilized man being scarce or altogether absent, I finally succeeded. # # # # Towards the end of September it 

 became absolutely necessary for me to return, in order to make our homeward voyage before the end of the 



