ORNITHOLOGY OF SECTION D, 1850. 
munication with them, but they proved a warlike and treacherous 
race; and although we came in collision with them only once, yet 
on several occasions, hostilities were avoided only by good man- 
agement on our part. They are copper coloured, with generally 
huge mops of hair, frizzled out with a long comb; have beautiful 
canoes, which both pull and sail well; cultivate the ground after a 
fashion, and even domesticate the Papuan Pig; their weapons are 
Spears and wooden swords. The men wear a breast cloth of pan- 
danus leaves, and the women a short petticoat. We watered the 
ship at a running stream on Ile Sud Est of the French navigators, 
and this gave me some opportunities of landing. We had to pull 
up a mile and a half along a narrow salt and brackish creek, bor- 
dered first by mangroves and afterwards by dense jungle which 
we could scarcely traverse before we could reach the fresh water. 
The suspicious conduct of the natives, seven or eight canoes full of 
whom daily landed at the mouth of the ereek, rendered it incautious 
to wander far from the watering party, and hence wy operations 
were sadly crippled. Among the birds many appeared to me to 
be Australian. I wish you would look at a Lory I shot here; it is 
nearly allied to Lorius domicellus, but differs in the marking of 
the abdomen; also a Monarcha like M. trivirgata, but having 
black wings. Birds were very plentiful, but difficult to see among 
the foliage and few were killed. Some interesting fresh water, and 
and one or two land shells, were procured here, and also a few 
plants. At another anchorage I landed on ‘ Chaumeht’ Island, and 
obtained a Graucalus, which I think is your G. hypoleucus ; also 
a small swallow, identical with two I sent from Dunk Island, off 
the north-east coast of Australia. At our various anchorages 
among the islands of this group, I picked up a considerable variety 
of fishes, about forty species of which were skinned, and the rest 
placed in spirits, Our next halting place was at the “ Duchateau” 
Isles; a group of three low, wooded, uninhabited islets, where we 
had frequent opportunities of landing without molestation. Here 
we found a Megapodius, closely allied to. M. tumulus, but different 
and probably new; also a fine Carpophaga, very like like C. ocea- 
nica, but differing in the colouring of the legs from the description 
given by Lesson of that species. It was very plentiful, and most 
individuals were furnished with a fleshy caruncle at the base of the 
bill, of which I have made a drawing in case it should be necessary 
10) 
