Walter Goodfellow—The Royal Parrot Finch 175


under very difficult conditions. What our birds bad to go through and

survived only ourselves know. We changed to three boats before we

got home, and sometimes this was late at night after the birds had

gone to bed. Colon on the Panama Canal was one port where we

changed from a French boat to an English one. The cages were lowered

by ropes over the side into a launch at 10 o’clock at night, and none

too gently either, and then left in the Custom’s shed all night on shore.

To hear the birds dashing about it seemed as if they would all be

fatally injured.


After we arrived at Vila from Sydney our steamer was making a

special trip to some of the principal islands, so we took advantage of

this to become acquainted with them before deciding on a collecting

ground. In this way we visited Malekula where the natives are still

cannibals inland, Espiritu Santo, Pentecost, Tangoa, and many others,

finally returning to Vila. A week later we embarked on a still smaller

boat, indescribably dirty, for our final destination, which we reached

after three days. I shall always see the picture in my mind of this

beautiful island as we approached it in the early morning through a sea

like glass. It rose before us mountainous, and clothed in tropical

verdure to its summits, and how we scanned it through our glasses to

see if we could detect any open grassy spaces where the finches

would be likely to feed, but in vain. The boat only stopped long

enough to put us and our baggage ashore and then was off again.

Had she stayed longer I really believe after we had been on shore a

day we should have re-embarked and chosen another island as this

seemed so unpromising. We neither saw any of the finches nor any

ground where they would be likely to feed (from our point of view), nor

even any suitable grasses, neither did the natives seem to know the

birds we were after. It was several days before we could make them

understand, and longer before we definitely got its true native name,

although we had the assistance of two white traders who spoke the

language. We had mentioned the redhead, so they jumped to the

conclusion that it was the Cardinal Honey-eater Myzomelas cardinalis

we wanted and gave its name “ susupaumiel ”. At length after inter¬

viewing scores of natives we made them understand, and found the

right name, which is “ Taputi ” ; the “ u ” is pronounced like a double



