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. When this finally ceased, I had an attack of fever, which
left me so weak and so unable to eat our regular food, that I
feel sure my life was saved by a couple of tins of soup which I
had long reserved for some such extremity. I used often to go out
searching after vegetables, and found a great treasure in a lot
of tomato plants run wild, and bearing little fruits about the
size of gooseberries. I also boiled up the tops of pumpkin plants
and of ferns, by way of greens, and occasionally got a few green
papaws. The natives, when hard up for food, live upon a fleshy
seaweed, which they boil till it is tender. I tried this also,
but found it too salt and bitter to be endured.
Towards the end of September it became absolutely necessary for
me to return, in order to make our homeward voyage before the end
of the east monsoon. Most of the men who had taken payment from
me had brought the birds they had agreed for. One poor fellow had
been so unfortunate as not to get one, and he very honestly
brought back the axe he had received in advance; another, who had
agreed for six, brought me the fifth two days before I was to
start, and went off immediately to the forest again to get the
other. He did not return, however, and we loaded our boat, and
were just on the point of starting, when he came running down
after us holding up a bird, which he handed to me, saying with
great satisfaction, "Now I owe you nothing." These were
remarkable and quite unexpected instances of honesty among
savages, where it would have been very easy for them to have been
dishonest without fear of detection or punishment.
The country round about Bessir was very hilly and rugged,
bristling with jagged and honey-combed coralline rocks, and with
curious little chasms and ravines. The paths often passed through
these rocky clefts, which in the depths of the forest were gloomy
and dark in the extreme, and often full of fine-leaved herbaceous
plants and curious blue-foliaged Lycopodiaceae. It was in such
places as these that I obtained many of my most beautiful small
butterflies, such as Sospita statira and Taxila pulchra, the
gorgeous blue Amblypodia hercules, and many others. On the skirts
of the plantations I found the handsome blue Deudorix despoena,
and in the shady woods the lovely Lycaena wallacei. Here, too, I
obtained the beautiful Thyca aruna, of the richest orange on the
upper side; while below it is intense crimson and glossy black;
and a superb specimen of a green Ornithoptera, absolutely fresh
and perfect, and which still remains one of the glories of my
cabinet.
My collection of birds, though not very rich in number of
species, was yet very interesting. I got another specimen of the
rare New Guinea kite (Henicopernis longicauda), a large new
goatsucker (Podargus superciliaris), and a most curious ground-
pigeon of an entirely new genus, and remarkable for its long and
powerful bill. It has been named Henicophaps albifrons. I was
also much pleased to obtain a fine series of a large fruit-pigeon
with a protuberance on the bill (Carpophaga tumida), and to
ascertain that this was not, as had been hitherto supposed, a
sexual character, but was found equally in male and female birds.
I collected only seventy-three species of birds in Waigiou, but
twelve of them were entirely new, and many others very rare; and
as I brought away with me twenty-four fine specimens of the
Paradisea rubra, I did not regret my visit to the island,
although it had by no means answered my expectations.
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