As I Lie Listening To These Interesting Sounds, I
Realize My Position As The First European Who Has Ever Lived For
Months Together In The Aru Islands, A Place Which I Had Hoped
Rather Than Expected Ever To Visit.
I think how many besides my
self have longed to reach these almost fairy realms, and to see
with their own eyes the many wonderful and beautiful things which
I am daily encountering.
But now Ali and Baderoon are up and
getting ready their guns and ammunition, and little Brio has his
fire lighted and is boiling my coffee, and I remember that I had
a black cockatoo brought in late last night, which I must skin
immediately, and so I jump up and begin my day's work very
happily.
This cockatoo is the first I have seen, and is a great prize. It
has a rather small and weak body, long weak legs, large wings,
and an enormously developed head, ornamented with a magnificent
crest, and armed with a sharp-pointed hoofed bill of immense size
and strength. The plumage is entirely black, but has all over it
the curious powdery white secretion characteristic of cockatoo.
The cheeks are bare, and of an intense blood-red colour. Instead
of the harsh scream of the white cockatoos, its voice is a
somewhat plaintive whistle. The tongue is a curious organ, being
a slender fleshy cylinder of a deep red colour, terminated by a
horny black plate, furrowed across and somewhat prehensile.
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