He
Missed However, And Let Go, And The Snake Got Under A Dead Trunk
Close By.
It was again poked out, and again the Bourn man caught
hold of its tail, and running away quickly dashed its head with a
swing against a tree, and it was then easily killed with a
hatchet.
It was about twelve feet long and very thick, capable of
doing much mischief and of swallowing a dog or a child.
I did not get a great many birds here. The most remarkable were
the fine crimson lory, Eos rubra - a brush-tongued parroquet of a
vivid crimson colour, which was very abundant. Large flocks of
them came about the plantation, and formed a magnificent object
when they settled down upon some flowering tree, on the nectar of
which lories feed. I also obtained one or two specimens of the
fine racquet-tailed kingfisher of Amboyna, Tanysiptera nais, one
of the most singular and beautiful of that beautiful family.
These birds differ from all other kingfishers (which have usually
short tails) by having the two middle tail-feathers immensely
lengthened and very narrowly webbed, but terminated by a spoon-
shaped enlargement, as in the motmots and some of the humming-
birds. They belong to that division of the family termed king-
hunters, living chiefly on insects and small land-molluscs, which
they dart down upon and pick up from the ground, just as a
kingfisher picks a fish out of the water. They are confined to a
very limited area, comprising the Moluccas, New Guinea and
Northern Australia.
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