The Malay archipelago : the land of the orang-utan ... - Wallace Online

XXXVIII.] THE BIRDS OF PARADISE. 439the forest to shoot, and receiving a small j^resent when he wassuccessful.In the grand matter of the Paradise Birds, however, little wasdone. Only one additional species was found, the Seleucidesalba, of which he had already obtained a specimen in Salwatty ;but he learnt that the other kinds, of which he show^ed themdrawings, were found two or three days' journey farther in theinterior. When I sent my men from Dorey to Amberbaki, theyheard exactly the same story—that the rarer sorts were onlyfound several days journey in the interior, among ruggedmountains, and that the skins were prepared by savage tribeswho had never even been seen by any of the coast people.It seems as if Nature had taken precautions that these herchoicest treasures should not be made too common, and thus beundervalued. This northern coast of New Guinea is exposed tothe full swell of the Pacific Ocean, and is rugged and harbourless.The country is all rocky and mountainous, covered everywherewith dense forest, offering in its swamps and precipicesand serrated ridges an almost impassable barrier to the unknowninterior ; and the people are dangerous savages, in the verylowest stage of barbarism. In such a country, and among sucha people, are found these wonderful productions of Nature, theBirds of Paradise, Avhose exquisite beauty of form and colour,and strange developments of plumage/are calculated to excitethe wonder and admiration of the most civilized and the mostintellectual of mankind, and to furnish inexhaustible materialsfor study to the naturalist, and for speculation to the philosopher.Thus ended my search after these beautiful birds. Fivevoyages to difterent parts of the district they inhabit, eachoccupying in its preparation and execution the larger part ofa year, produced me only five species out of the fourteen knownto exist in the New Guinea district. The kinds obtained arethose that inhabit the coasts of New Guinea and its islands, theremainder seeming to be strictly confined to the central mountain-rangesof the northern peninsula ; and our researches atDorey and Amberbaki, near one end of this peninsula, and atSalwatty and Sorong, near tlie other, enable me to decide withsome certainty on the native country of these rare and lovelybirds, good specimens of which have never yet been seen inEurope.It must be considered as somewhat extraordinary that, duringfive years' residence and travel in Celebes, the Moluccas, andNew Guinea, I should never have been able to purchase skinsof half the species which Lesson, forty years ago, obtainedduring a few weeks in the same countries. I believe that all,except the common species of commerce, are now much moredifiicult to obtain than they were even twenty years ago ;andI impute it principally to them having been sought after by theDutch ofl&cials through the Sultan of Tidore. The chiefs of the