g. "You don't mean the noise?"

"No, but I mean the blacks," said the doctor.

"Oh, I see," cried Jack; "but it does seem such a pity. I should like
to have a tent ashore."

"It would be delightful under one of those big trees, but canvas is a
poor safeguard against the point of a spear. It wouldn't do."

"No," said Jack with a sigh, "it would not do."

Many excursions into the interior were made--the interior meaning a
climb up the slope of the great mountain--and in all cases a grand
selection of beautifully-plumaged birds was secured. Many of these were
the tiny sun-birds, glittering in scales of ruby, amethyst, sapphire,
and topaz; then too at the sides of the streams vivid blue-and-white
kingfishers with orange bills were shot, many of them with two of the
tail-feathers produced in a long shaft ending in a racket-like flat,
giving the birds a most graceful aspect.

Then there were plenty of paroquets, rich in green, orange, and
vermilion; rain-birds as the Malays call them, in claret and white, with
blue and orange beaks; parrots without number, and finches, swallows,
and starlings of lovely metallic hues; but the greatest prizes were the
birds of paradise, of which several kinds were secured, from the
grandly-plumaged great bird of paradise to the tiny king. Whenever one
of these was shot in some great grove at daybreak, Jack hesitated to
have it skinned for fear of injuring the lovely feathers, over which
adornments Nature seemed to have done her best. Now it was one of the
first-named, a largish bird, with its feathers standing out to curve
over in a dry fountain of golden buff, ornamented with their beautifully
flowing; wave-like shafts; and this would be of a prevailing tint of
soft cinnamon red; while the smaller kinds were lavishly adorned with
crests and tippets and sprays of feathers brighter than burnished metal.

"I don't know how it is," said Jack one day, "but every bird we find
seems more beautiful than the last."

He had just picked up a fresh specimen which had fallen to the doctor's
gun.

"Well, it is more novel than beautiful, Jack," said the doctor, as they
turned over and re-arranged the dark purple, or dark-brown, or claret,
or black, or green metallic plumage, for it might have been called
either according to the angle at which it was viewed. "Come, this will
help to make them believe that birds of paradise are of the crow
family."

"No one ever saw a crow half as beautiful