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Updated: May 27, 2025
Every stroke of the oars, too, sent the brilliant little fish scurrying away in shoals fish that were gorgeous beyond description, and were to the water what the sun-birds were to the air. All at once the men ceased rowing and allowed the boat to stop. "What is it?" said the captain.
When in September the flame-tree is a dome of red, sun-birds gather by the score the gayest of all the revellers. Uncommon length of bill enables them to probe recesses of flowers forbidden others, and they seem proud of the superiority. The varied-honey-eater visits flower after flower with something of method.
Several lists were compiled, the most comprehensive being: Honey-eaters were represented by a dozen or more; but were not so numerous as the sun-birds, which were difficult to accurately enumerate, owing to their sprightly behaviour. The birds were more numerous about eight a.m.
At others, beneath some great flower-draped tree, where the sun-birds hovered and darted. But the great objects of our search, the birds of paradise, haunted the nut and berry bearing trees. Some were always to be found by a kind of palm that attracted the pigeons as well, these latter swallowing fruit that looked as big as their heads.
I thought it very kind of him to say us when I know he meant you, but I did not say anything, only eagerly searched the thickly-spread canes and broad-leaved plants as far as I could see with my eyes, and then I could not help thinking what a beautiful spot that marsh was in spite of the serpent, as two or three of the lovely pitta thrushes flitted amidst the bamboos, and half a dozen sun-birds darted about a convolvulus-like plant, and kept flashing in the sunshine, which every now and then seemed to make their feathers blaze.
The beauties of the scene increased, in spite of each one in which they paused seeming as if it could not be surpassed; for as they penetrated more deeply they not only came upon flowering trees about which tiny sun-birds, whose plumage was a blaze of burnished metallic splendour, whirred, and buzzed, and darted, or probed the blossoms with their beaks, but they found that the island, if island it should prove, was inhabited by endless numbers of gorgeous butterflies.
I have said nothing about the magnificence of the scenery for a part of the way, where the road goes through a grand mountain pass, where all the vegetable glories of the tropics seem assembled, and one gets a new idea of what scenery can be; while beneath superb tree-ferns and untattered bananas, and palms, and bright-flowered lianas, and graceful trailers, and vermilion-colored orchids, and under sun-birds and humming birds and the most splendid butterflies I ever saw, a torrent, as clear as crystal, dashes over the rocks, and adds the music of tumbling water to the enchantment of a scene whose loveliness no words can give any idea of.
The officers were delighted, and Doctor Bolter in raptures. He had obtained specimens of the atlas moth, a large flap-winged insect, as large across as a moderate dish; he had shot sun-birds, azure kingfishers, gapers, chatterers, parroquets; and his last achievement had been to kill a boa-constrictor twenty-four feet long.
Meanwhile we were working industriously over our specimens, finding paroquets that were quite new to us, splendid cockatoos, and some that were as ugly as they were curious. Sun-birds, pittas, lovely starlings, kingfishers, and beautifully-tinted pigeons were in abundance.
"Yes, Nat," said my uncle, who seemed to read my thoughts, "that is the way to see the beauty of the sun-birds. No stuffed specimens of ours will ever reproduce a hundredth part of their beauty; but people cannot always come from England to see these things. Take care! What's that?"
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