and lias great attractions for many birds, from the white
cockatoos to the little yellow Zosterops, who feast on the
crimson seeds which are displayed when the fruit hursts
open. The great palm called “ G-ubbong ” by the natives,
a species of Corypha, is the most striking feature of the
plains, where it grows by thousands and appears in three
different states—in leaf, in flower and fruit, or dead. It
has a lofty cylindrical stem about a hundred feet high and
two to three feet in diameter; the leaves are large and fanshaped,
and fall off when the tree flowers, which it does
only once in its life in a huge terminal spike, on which are
produced masses of a smooth round fruit of a green colour
and about an inch in diameter. When these ripen and fall
the tree dies, and remains standing a year or two before it
falls. Trees in leaf only are by far the most numerous,
then those in flower and fruit, while dead trees are scattered
here and there among them. The trees in fruit are
the resort of the great green fruit pigeons, which have been
already mentioned. Troops of monkeys (Macacus cyno-
molgus) may often be seen occupying a tree, showering
down the fruit in great profusion, chattering when disturbed
and making an enormous rustling as they scamper
off among the dead palm leaves % while the pigeons have a
loud booming voice more like the roar of a wild beast than
the note of a bird.
My collecting operations here were carried on under
more than usual difficulties. One small room had to serve
for eating sleeping and working, for storehouse and dissecting
room ; in it were no shelves, cupboards, chairs or
tables; ants swarmed in every part of it, and dogs, cats and.
fowls entered it at pleasure. Besides this it was the parlour
and reception-room of my host, and I was obliged, to consult
his convenience and that of the numerous guests who
visited us. My principal piece of furniture was a box,
which served me as a dining-table, a seat while skinning
birds, and as the receptacle of the birds when skinned and
dried. To keep them free from ants we borrowed, with some
difficulty, an old bench, the four legs of which being placed
in cocoa-nut shells filled with water kept us tolerably free
from these pests. The box and the bench were however
literally the only places where anything could be put
away, and they were generally well occupied by two
insect boxes and about a hundred birds’ skins in process of
drying. It may therefore be easily conceived that when
anything bulky or out of the common way was collected,
the question | Where is it to be put ? ” was rather a difficult
one to answer. All animal substances moreover require
some time to dry thoroughly, emit a very disagreeable
odour while doing so, and are particularly attractive to
ants, flies, dogs, rats, cats, and other vermin, calling for
especial cautions and constant supervision, which under
the circumstances above described were impossible.