dise, which Mr Hooker had fully described
to us. I knew from this that we must be on an island very close to the
shores of New Guinea, as Mr Hooker had told me these birds are only
found in that vast country, or in the surrounding islands. When
Europeans first arrived at the Moluccas to obtain cloves and nutmegs,
which were then supposed to be rare, and considered of great value, they
saw, in the possession of the natives, dried skins of birds of beautiful
plumage and unusual shape. On inquiring their name, they were told that
they were God's birds. As the bodies shown them had neither feet nor
wings, they easily believed the story they heard, that they had fallen
from the sun, and the Portuguese therefore called them birds of the sun.
The Dutch, who came afterwards, gave them the name of birds of
paradise. One of their early writers declared that no one had ever seen
them alive, that they existed only in the air, invariably keeping their
heads towards the sun, and never reaching earth till they died. Even as
late as 1760 they were supposed to have no feet, and Linnaeus calls them
footless birds of paradise. Another account says that they come to some
of the spice islands of the East to eat nutmegs, which so intoxicate
them, that they fall down senseless, and are then killed. Mr Hooker,
however, assured me that they were found only in New Guinea, and in a
few groups of islands in its immediate neighbourhood. There is a
considerable number of species of this bird, all of which have a
magnificent plumage. They are of moderate size, and are allied in their
habits and structure to crows, starlings, and to the Australian
honey-suckers. I longed to get some of these beautiful birds; but at
present we had too much important work on which our existence might
depend to allow me to make an attempt to obtain them.

We laboured on till the sun nearly reached the horizon, and then hurried
back to our hut. As may be supposed, as we passed along the shore we
took an anxious look-out in every direction to ascertain if any sail was
in sight; but the distant horizon still remained unbroken, as it had
been since the prow which had brought us to the island had disappeared
across it.

I was still unwilling to attack the mollusc; but Macco, cutting off some
slices, toasted them before the fire, and declared them very good. I
preferred supping on the remainder of the turtle's eggs, as did Oliver.
He, however, tried a bit of the