Some Of Them Ate Boiled Rice As Well As Fruit And Insects;
But After Trying Many In Succession, Not One Out Of Ten Lived
More Than Three Days.
The second or third day they would be dull,
and in several cases they were seized with convulsions, and fell
off the perch, dying a few hours afterwards.
I tried immature as
well as full-plumaged birds, but with no better success, and at
length gave it up as a hopeless task, and confined my attention
to preserving specimens in as good a condition as possible.
The Red Birds of Paradise are not shot with blunt arrows, as in
the Aru Islands and some parts of New Guinea, but are snared in a
very ingenious manner. A large climbing Arum bears a red
reticulated fruit, of which the birds are very fond. The hunters
fasten this fruit on a stout forked stick, and provide themselves
with a fine but strong cord. They then seep out some tree in the
forest on which these birds are accustomed to perch, and climbing
up it fasten the stick to a branch and arrange the cord in a
noose so ingeniously, that when the bird comes to eat the fruit
its legs are caught, and by pulling the end of the cord, which
hangs down to the ground, it comes free from the branch and
brings down the bird. Sometimes, when food is abundant elsewhere,
the hunter sits from morning till night under his tree with the
cord in his hand, and even for two or three whole days in
succession, without even getting a bite; while, on the other
hand, if very lucky, he may get two or three birds in a day.
There are only eight or ten men at Bessir who practise this art,
which is unknown anywhere else in the island. I determined,
therefore, to stay as long as possible, as my only chance of
getting a good series of specimens; and although I was nearly
starved, everything eatable by civilized man being scarce or
altogether absent, I finally succeeded.
The vegetables and fruit in the plantations around us did not
suffice for the wants of the inhabitants, and were almost always
dug up or gathered before they were ripe. It was very rarely we
could purchase a little fish; fowls there were none; and we were
reduced to live upon tough pigeons and cockatoos, with our rice
and sago, and sometimes we could not get these. Having been
already eight months on this voyage, my stock of all condiments,
spices and butter, was exhausted, and I found it impossible to
eat sufficient of my tasteless and unpalatable food to support
health. I got very thin and weak, and had a curious disease known
(I have since heard) as brow-ague. Directly after breakfast every
morning an intense pain set in on a small spot on the right
temple. It was a severe burning ache, as bad as the worst
toothache, and lasted about two hours, generally going off at
noon.
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