eginning work in a new locality.

One of my first objects was to inquire for the people who are accustomed
to shoot the Paradise birds. They lived at some distance in the jungle,
and a man was sent to call them. When they arrived, we had a talk by
means of the "Orang-kaya" as interpreter, and they said they thought
they could get some. They explained that they shoot the birds with a bow
and arrow, the arrow having a conical wooden cap fitted to the end as
large as a teacup, so as to kill the bird by the violence of the blow
without making any wound or shedding any blood. The trees frequented
by the birds are very lofty; it is therefore necessary to erect a small
leafy covering or hut among the branches, to which the hunter mounts
before daylight in the morning and remains the whole day, and whenever
a bird alights they are almost sure of securing it. (See Frontispiece.)
They returned to their homes the same evening, and I never saw anything
more of them, owing, as I afterwards found, to its being too early to
obtain birds in good plumage.

The first two or three days of our stay here were very wet, and I
obtained but few insects or birds, but at length, when I was beginning
to despair, my boy Baderoon returned one day with a specimen which
repaid me for months of delay and expectation. It was a small bird a
little less than a thrush. The greater part of its plumage was of an
intense cinnabar red, with a gloss as of spun glass. On the head the
feathers became short and velvety, and shaded into rich orange. Beneath,
from the breast downwards, was pure white, with the softness and gloss
of silk, and across the breast a band of deep metallic green separated
this colour from the red of the throat. Above each eye was a round spot
of the same metallic green; the bill was yellow, and the feet and legs
were of a fine cobalt oille, strikingly contrasting with all the other
parts of the body. Merely in arrangement of colours and texture of
plumage this little bird was a gem of the first water, yet there
comprised only half its strange beauty. Springing from each side of
the breast, and ordinarily lying concealed under the wings, were little
tufts of greyish feathers about two inches long, and each terminated by
a broad band of intense emerald green. These plumes can be raised at the
will of the bird, and spread out into a pair of elegant fans when the
wings are elevated. But this is not the only ornament. The two middle
feathers