BIRDS OF PARADISE. 
127 
dried with their feet on. The price of a Bird of 
Paradise among the Papuans of the coast is a piastre 
at least. 
The cry of the Emerald is loud and piercing ; that 
of the male resembles the words voike, voike, voike, 
voiko, strongly articulated, so much so as to he heard 
at a long distance. The female, deprived of the bril- 
liant plumage that adorns the male, is clad in sombre 
attire, and the cry is much more feeble. 
This species, being the most elegant and best 
adapted as an ornament for the head and other pur- 
poses, has been in request from the earliest times of 
which we have any knowledge of these eastern climes ; 
and the natives contrive to procure them by means of 
blunted arrows, without wounding the skin or mate- 
rially ruffling the plumage. The feet and wings are 
then removed, the body drawn, extended on a stick 
inserted by the bill, and then dried in smoke, to such a 
degree that it is not liable to be destroyed by insects. 
Mr. Bennett, in his “ AVanderings,” says that this 
elegant creature has a light, playful, and graceful 
manner, with an arch look, dances about when a 
visitor approaches the cage, and seems delighted at 
being made an object of admiration; its notes are 
very peculiar, resembling the cawing of the raven, 
but its tones are by far more varied. During four 
months of the year, from May to August, it moults. 
It washes itself regularly twice daily (it was con- 
fined in an aviary), and after having performed its 
ablutions, throws its delicate feathers up nearly over 
the head, the quills of which feathers have a peculiar 
structure, so as to enable the bird to effect this object. 
