armed with his bow and a number of arrows terminating in a round knob. A boy waits at the foot of the
tree ■ and when the birds come at sunrise, and a sufficient number have assembled and have begun to dance, the
hunter shoots with his blunt arrow so strongly os to stun the bird, which drops down, and is secured and killed
by the boy without“ its plumage being injured by a drop of blood. ’ The rest take no notice, and fell one after
another till some of them take the alarm. The native mode of preserving them is to cut off the wings and feet,
and then skin the body up to the beak, taking out the skull. A stout stick is then run np through the specimen,
coming out at the mouth. Bound thin some leaves are stuffed; and the whole is wrapped up m a palm spathe,
and dried in the smoky hut. By this plan the head, Which is really large, is shrunk up almost to nothing, the
body is much reduced and shortened, and the greatest prominence is given to the Sowing plumage. Some of these BBS skins ore very dean, and often have wings and feet left on; others are dreadfully stained with smoke; and all
give a most erroneous idea of the proportions of the living bird.' The Paradisea «poda, as fer as we hove any
rertain knowledge, is confined' to the mainland of the Aru Islands, never being found in the smaller Wands
which surround the central mais. It is certainly not? found in any of the parts of New Guinea visited by the
Malay and Bngis traders, nor in any of the Other islitnds where Birds of Paradise are obtained. But this is by no
meins conclusive evidence; for it is only in certain localities that the natives prepare skins, and in other places the
same birds may be abundant without ever becoming known. It is therefore quite possible that this species may
inhabit the great southern mass of New Guinea, tom which Aru has .lggp separated; while its near ally, P. papaam,
is confined to the north-western peninsula.”
The habits referred to above by Mr. Wallace are thus described by him on page 151 of the same work; he was
residing on the Aru Islands, where he had gone to procure these birds. " I had, however, sonic consolation in the
birds my boys brought home daily, more especially in the Paradiseas, which they at length obtained in fell plumage.
It was quite a relief to my mind to get these; for I could hardly have tom myself away ftom Aru hod I not
obtained specimens. But what I valued almost as much as the birds themselves was the knowledge of their habits,
which I was daily obtaining, both from the accounts of my hunters and from the conversation of the natives. The'
birds had now commenced what the people here coll -soealeh,’ or dancing-parties, in certain trees in the forest,
which are not fruit-trees, as I at first imagined; but which have an immense head of spreading branches and large
but scattered leaves, giving a clear space for the hirds to play and exhibit their plumes. On one of these trees a
dozen or twenty foll-plumaged mole birds assemble together, raise up their wings, stretch out their necks, and elevate
their exquisite plumes, keeping them in a continual vibration. Between whiles they fly across from branch to branch
in great exchemsrt; so- that' the whole tree is filled with waving plumes in every variety of attitude and motion.
The bird itself is nearly as large as a crow, and is of a rich coffee-brown colour. The head and neck is of a pure
straw-yellow above, and rich metallic green beneath. The long plumy tufte of golden-orange feathers spring from the
sides beneath- each wing, and when the bird is in repose are partially concealed by them. At the time of its
excitement; however, the - wings are raised vertically over the back, the head is bent down and stretched; out, and
the long ¿lumes are raised up and expanded till they form magnificent golden fans, striped with deep red at the
base; hnd Aiding off into the pale brown tint of the finely divided and softly waving points. The whole bird is then
overshadowed by them, the crouching body, yellow head, and emerald-green throat forming but the foundation and
the aetting to the golden glory which waves above. When seen in this attitude, the Bird of Paradise really deserves
its name, and must be ranked as one of the most beautiful and most wonderful o f living things”-;. ir } j , it,
- In the ‘Annals and Magazine of Natural History' for 1857, the same author states, in a paper published on
this species, that ‘Ibn examining a freshly kflled bird we see the great muscular strength of the legB and wings,
and find the skin to be remarkably thick and tough, and the skill as w e l as the bones very hard and strong.
The whole neck is lined with a thick, muscular fat, exactly similar to that of the Cephahptents omatue, m the
same position, and probably serving in both cases to nourish the highly developed plumage of the adjacent parts.
This causes the throat exteraaly to appear very wide, and as if swollen, which displays to great advantage the
dense, scaly, metallic plumage. The flesh, as might be-expected, is dry, tasteless, and very tough—to be eaten
bidy in necessity. By far the greater number of the birds I have Opened have had their stomachs fu l of fruit;
and this seems to be their usurd and fevonrite food. At times, however, they seek after insects, principally
Orthoptera; and I have found one of the largest of the Phasmidte almost entire in the stomach of a foll-plumaged
bird. "It -is only-for two or- three months of the year, during the height of the feast monsoon, that the natives
obtain them; and this circumstance has, no doubt led to. the statement that they are migratory in Aru’, arriving
ftom New Guinea at the end of the west, and returning there again at the end of the east monsoon which
is quite incorrect, os they are permanent residents in Aru, and the natives know nothing about their being found
in New Guinea. About April, when the change from the west to the east monsoon occurs, the Paradiseas begin
to show the ornamental side-fehthers ; and in May and June they have mostly arrived at their foil perfection.
This is probably the season of pairing. They are in a state of excitement and incessant activity; and the nudes
assemble together to exercise, and fortress and display their magnificent plumage.” “ The long side plumea, our author
states, ‘all spring from an'oval‘fold of the skin, about an inch in length, situated just below the elbow or first
joint of the wing. On this point they turn as on a hinge, and admit only of being laid down closed beneath the
wing, or erected- and expanded!-which position they take of their own accord, if the bird is held up by the legs,
with thé head inclining-a-little downwards, and the whole gently shaken. In this manner by slightly altering the
position o f- the body, all the forms Which the plumage assumes during life can be correctly and beautifully
imitated. The rçài5us habit of the moles assembling to play and exercise their limbs and feathers, occurs in
some other1 birds, as the Turkeys and Argus Pheasants, and particularly in the Rupicala cayana, which, though
a true arboreal bird, has its ball-room on ’ the grouhd, generally on a flat rock, on which a space a few
feet in diameter is worn clean and smooth by the feet of the dancers. On these spots the natives set snares
and catch these beáutiftl birds alive. Of the geographical distribution of the Bird of Paradise many erroneous
statements- KaVe been published. Its supposed migrations lnrve by some been extended to Banda, by others to
Céroiñ arid-all the eastern islands of’ the Molucca group.' These statements, however, are totally without foun-
dation; the species being strictly confined to- New Guinea and' the Aru Islands, , and even to a limited portion
iff each Of those conirtrics. Ani Consists of a very large" central island, and some hundreds of smaller ones
scattered 'around it atvarious distances, many b e fo g o f large size and Covered' with ’ dense and lofty forests; yet
On not one of tírese is the Paradisea Over found (although ninny of them are much nearer New Guinea), being
limited to the large island, and even - to the central ■ portions of that island, never appearing on the setecoast,
nor in the swampy forests, which in many cases reach some miles inland. With regard to its distribution in
NfeW Guinea, the Macassar traders assured me it was not : found there at all; for although they obtain quantities
of ‘Burong mafi’ from most of the ’ places t o y visit on the west coast of New Guinea, they are all of
another kind; being the Pata,lien papuana, a smaller and more delicate but leas brilliantly coloured species. On
inquiry I found they' did not trade to the eastward'of -Cape Buro (135" E.). Lesson, I believe, found the larger
species in the southern peninsula of New Guinea; and an Intelligent Ceiámese trader I met at Aru assured me
that in places he had visited more eastward than the range of. the Macassar traders, the same kind was found
as at Aru. : IF S’ therefore dear that tire Paradisea apoda is-rconfined to the southern peninsula of New Guinea
and the Aru Islands, while the Paradisea papuana inhabits only the northern peninsula, with ode or two of the
islands (most" pfobably) near its noitherir extremity. Q is. interesting to observe that though the Kc Islands and
Goram approich nearer to New Guinea thim -Aru, ¿o speciei o f. the Paradise-birds are found upon them—pretty
Clearly showing that these birds have not migrated to - the islands beyond New Guinea, m which they are now
found ’ In examining my series of specimens I find four such well-marked states of the mole bird as to lead me
to suppose that three moults are required before it arrives at perfection. In the first condition -It is of a nearly
„„fform cofffee-brown colour, darker.on the head and paler on the belly, but entirely without markings or variety of
colour The two middle tail-feathers are exactly equal in length to the others, from which they only dtffer in
hiving a narrower web. In the next series of specimens the head has acquired the pale yellow colour, and the
throat and forehead the rich metallic green of the old birds; the two middle tail-feathers, however, are still webbed,
but are now two Or three inches longer thah the rest. In the next atete these two feathers have been replaced by
the immensely long bare rrehides, quite equal to the greatest size they attain; but there is as yet no sq>n of the
fine aide-plumes which mark the fourth and perfect state of the species. I am inclined to beheve, therefore, that
this extraordinary mass of plumes is only obtained by the Pamdma in its fourth- year, and after three complete
changes of its feathers. This will recount for thevery large number of immature birds everywhere seen, while the
li.ll-p1un.nred males are comparatively scarce. It is smgulir that I have not been able to obtain a single adult
ftJ d e , mTonly specimen of that sex being, I think, also a young bird. It is exactly enrular to ^ 7 ““ ^
males of a coffee-brown all over; but in Bonaparte's ‘ Conspectus' it is stated that the female is dusky yefiow
andbrown with the underparts eniirekt » « a - T h is, I cannot help thinking, must be a mistake or altogether another
bird ; for" neitor myself nor- my hunters have ever seen one at all resembling it, out of many hundreds m
various stages of plumage. The natives who shoot the birds are also quite unaquamted with it, and always
declared t o t the birds of a -uniform brown.colour; were the females. It is also worthy of note that t o long
cirri of t o toil in the full-plumngcd nudes vary very much in length; and t o shortest te often t o most worn,
showing that it has reached its- foil development - for the yea,. A spedmen occurs occasroreBy with a—
cirri; one of mine has these feathers 34 inches long, while t o general length sceute to be from 24 to 28
¡■„h^ T think it probable, therefore, that these cirri increase in length each year, red that t o very long ones