CHAF.sr.] BIRDS NEAR MJCASSAR. 215 



getting another boy who coxild cook and shoot, and had no 

 objection to go into the interior. His name was Baderoon, 

 and as he was unmarried and had been used t<j a roving 

 life, hairing been several voyages to Korth Austmlia to 

 catch trepang ot " l)6che de raer," I was in hopes of being 

 able to keep hini, I also got hold of a little impndcnt rascal 

 of twelve or fourteen, who could speak some Jiialay, to 

 carry my gun or insect-net and make himself generally 

 useful AU had by this time become a pretty good bird- 

 skinuer, so that I was fairly supplied with servants. 



I made many excursions itito the country, in search of a 

 good station for collecting Inrds and insects. 8ome of the 

 villages a few miles inland are scattered about in woody 

 ground which has once been virgin forest, but of which 

 the constituent trees have been for the most part replaced 

 by fruit trees, and particularly by the large palm, Arenga 

 saccharifera, from which wine and sugar are made, and 

 which also produces a coarse black fibre used for cordage. 

 Tliat necessary of life, the bamboo, has also been abun- 

 dantly planted. In such places I found a good many 

 birds, among which were the fine cream-coloured pigeon, 

 Carpophaga luctuosa, and the rare blue-headed i\)Uer, 

 Coracias temmincki, wliich has a mast discordant voice, 

 and generally goes in pairs, flying from tree to tree, and 

 exhibiting while at rest that all-in-a-heap appearance aud 

 jerking motion of the head and tail which sue so charac- 

 teristic of the great Fissirostml group to which it belongs. 

 From this habit alone, the kingfishers, bee-eaters, rollers, 

 trogons, and South .iimerican puff-birds, might be grouped 

 together by a person who had observe*! them in a state of 

 nature, but who had never had an opportunity of examin- 

 ins their form and structure in detaib Thousands of 

 crows, rather smaller than our rook, keep up a constant 

 cawing in these plantations; the curious wood-swallows 

 (Artami), which closely resemble swa,llows in their habits 

 and flight but differ much in form and structure, twitter 

 from the tree-tops ; while a lyre-tailed drongo-shrike, \nth 

 brilliant black plumage and" milk-white eyes, continually 

 deceives the naturalist by the variety of its unmelodious 

 notes. 



In the more shady parts butterflies were tolerably 



