The Great Bird Of Paradise Is Very Active And Vigorous And Seems
To Be In Constant Motion All Day Long.
It is very abundant, small
flocks of females and young male being constantly met with; and
though the full-plumaged birds are less plentiful, their loud
cries, which are heard daily, show that they also are very
numerous.
Their note is, "Wawk-wawk-wawk-Wok-wok-wok," and is so
loud and shrill as to be heard a great distance, and to form the
most prominent and characteristic animal sound in the Aru
Islands. The mode of nidification is unknown; but the natives
told me that the nest was formed of leaves placed on an ant's
nest, or on some projecting limb of a very lofty tree, and they
believe that it contains only one young bird. The egg is quite
unknown, and the natives declared they had never seen it; and a
very high reward offered for one by a Dutch official did not meet
with success. They moult about January or February, and in May,
when they are in full plumage, the males assemble early in the
morning to exhibit themselves in the singular manner already
described at p. 252. This habit enables the natives to obtain
specimens with comparative ease. As soon as they find that the
birds have fled upon a tree on which to assemble, they build a
little shelter of palm leaves in a convenient place among the
branches, and the hunter ensconces himself in it before daylight,
armed with his bow and a number of arrows terminating in a round
knob. A boy waits at the foot of the tree, and when the birds
come at sunrise, and a sufficient number have assembled, and have
begun to dance, the hunter shoots with his blunt arrow so
strongly as to stun the bird, which drops down, and is secured
and killed by the boy without its plumage being injured by a drop
of blood. The rest take no notice, and fall one after another
till some of them take the alarm. (See Frontispiece.)
The native mode of preserving them is to cut off the wings and
feet, and then skin the body up to the beak, taking out the
skull. A stout stick is then run up through the specimen coming
out at the mouth. Round this some leaves are stuffed, and the
whole is wrapped up in a palm spathe and dried in the smoky hut.
By this plan the head, which is really large, is shrunk up almost
to nothing, the body is much reduced and shortened, and the
greatest prominence is given to the flowing plumage. Some of
these native skins are very clean, and often have wings and feet
left on; others are dreadfully stained with smoke, and all hive a
most erroneous idea of the proportions of the living bird.
The Paradisea apoda, as far as we have any certain knowledge, is
confined to the mainland of the Aru Islands, never being found in
the smaller islands which surround the central mass.
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