Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Towards the end of September it became absolutely necessary for me to return, in order to
make our homeward voyage before the end of the east monsoon. Most of the men who had
taken payment from me had brought the birds they had agreed for. One poor fellow had
been so unfortunate as not to get one, and he very honestly brought back the axe he had re-
ceived in advance; another, who had agreed for six, brought me the fifth two days before I
was to start, and went off immediately to the forest again to get the other. He did not return,
however, and we loaded our boat, and were just on the point of starting, when he came run-
ning down after us holding up a bird, which he handed to me, saying with great satisfaction,
'Now I owe you nothing.' These were remarkable and quite unexpected instances of hon-
esty among savages, where it would have been very easy for them to have been dishonest
without fear of detection or punishment.
The country round about Bessir was very hilly and rugged, bristling with jagged and
honey-combed coralline rocks, and with curious little chasms and ravines. The paths often
passed through these rocky clefts, which in the depths of the forest were gloomy and dark in
the extreme, and often full of fine-leaved herbaceous plants and curious blue-foliaged Lyco-
podiaceæ. It was in such places as these that I obtained many of my most beautiful small
butterflies, such as Sospita statira and Taxila pulchra, the gorgeous blue Amblypodia her-
cules, and many others. On the skirts of the plantations I found the handsome blue Deudorix
despœna, and in the shady woods the lovely Lycæna wallacei. Here, too, I obtained the
beautiful Thyca aruna, of the richest orange on the upper side, while below it is intense
crimson and glossy black; and a superb specimen of a green Ornithoptera, absolutely fresh
and perfect, and which still remains one of the glories of my cabinet.
My collection of birds, though not very rich in number of species, was yet very interest-
ing. I got another specimen of the rare New Guinea kite (Henicopernis longicauda), a large
new goatsucker (Podargus superciliaris), and a most curious ground-pigeon of an entirely
new genus, and remarkable for its long and powerful bill. It has been named Henicophaps
albifrons. I was also much pleased to obtain a fine series of a large fruit-pigeon with a pro-
tuberance on the bill (Carpophaga tumida), and to ascertain that this was not, as had been
hitherto supposed, a sexual character, but was found equally in male and female birds. I col-
lected only seventy-three species of birds in Waigiou, but twelve of them were entirely new,
and many others very rare; and as I brought away with me twenty-four fine specimens of the
Paradisea rubra, I did not regret my visit to the island, although it had by no means
answered my expectations.
