ry much crushed and injured. I tried to explain
to him, and to the others that came with him, that I wanted them as
perfect as possible, and that they should either kill them, or keep
them on a perch with a string to their leg. As they were now apparently
satisfied that all was fair, and that I had no ulterior designs upon
them, six others took away goods; some for one bird, some for more, and
one for as many as six. They said they had to go a long way for them,
and that they would come back as soon as they caught any. At intervals
of a few days or a week, some of them would return, bringing me one or
more birds; but though they did not bring any more in bags, there was
not much improvement in their condition. As they caught them a long way
off in the forest, they would scarcely ever come with one, but would
tie it by the leg to a stick, and put it in their house till they caught
another. The poor creature would make violent efforts to escape, would
get among the ashes, or hang suspended by the leg till the limb was
swollen and half-putrefied, and sometimes die of starvation and worry.
One had its beautiful head all defiled by pitch from a dammar torch;
another had been so long dead that its stomach was turning green.
Luckily, however, the skin and plumage of these birds is so firm and
strong, that they bear washing and cleaning better than almost any other
sort; and I was generally able to clean them so well that they did not
perceptibly differ from those I had shot myself.

Some few were brought me the same day they were caught, and I had an
opportunity of examining them in all their beauty and vivacity. As soon
as I found they were generally brought alive, I set one of my men to
make a large bamboo cage with troughs for food and water, hoping to be
able to keep some of them. I got the natives to bring me branches of
a fruit they were very fond of, and I was pleased to find they ate it
greedily, and would also take any number of live grasshoppers I gave
them, stripping off the legs and wings, and then swallowing them. They
drank plenty of water, and were in constant motion, jumping about the
cage from perch to perch, clinging on the top and sides, and rarely
resting a moment the first day till nightfall. The second day they were
always less active, although they would eat as freely as before; and on
the morning of the third day they were almost always found dead at the
bottom of the cage, without any apparent cause. So