It Must Be Considered As Somewhat Extraordinary That, During Five
Years' Residence And Travel In Celebes, The Moluccas, And New
Guinea, I Should Never Have Been Able To Purchase Skins Of Half
The Species Which Lesson, Forty Years Ago, Obtained During A Few
Weeks In The Same Countries.
I believe that all, except the
common species of commerce, are now much more difficult to obtain
than they were even twenty years ago; and I impute it principally
to their having been sought after by the Dutch officials through
the Sultan of Tidore.
The chiefs of the annual expeditions to
collect tribute have had orders to get all the rare sorts of
Paradise Birds; and as they pay little or nothing for them (it
being sufficient to say they are for the Sultan), the head men of
the coast villages would for the future refuse to purchase them
from the mountaineers, and confine themselves instead to the
commoner species, which are less sought after by amateurs, but
are a more profitable merchandise. The same causes frequently
lead the inhabitants of uncivilized countries to conceal minerals
or other natural products with which they may become acquainted,
from the fear of being obliged to pay increased tribute, or of
bringing upon themselves a new and oppressive labour.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PAPUAN ISLANDS.
NEW GUINEA, with the islands joined to it by a shallow sea,
constitute the Papuan group, characterised by a very close
resemblance in their peculiar forms of life.
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