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Updated: June 4, 2025
At night they climb up the trap, and either shoot the birds with blunt arrows, or even catch them alive with a cloth. In New Guinea they are caught by placing snares on the trees frequented by them, in the same way as the Red Paradise birds are caught in Waigiou, and which has already been described at page 362.
It is peculiar to the Moluccas, while the two other species which inhabit Ceram are found also in New Guinea and Waigiou. In place of the excessive poverty of mammals which characterises the Moluccas, we have a very rich display of the feathered tribes.
The Goram men come here for their supplies of opium, both for their own consumption and for barter in Mysol and Waigiou, where they have introduced it, and where the chiefs and wealthy men are passionately fond of it.
The fact that so many of the islands between New Guinea and the Moluccas such as Waigiou, Guebe, Poppa, Obi, Batchian, as well as the south and east peninsulas of Gilolo possess no aboriginal tribes, but are inhabited by people who are evidently mongrels and wanderers, is a remarkable corroborative proof of the distinctness of the Malayan and Papuan races, and the separation of the geographical areas they inhabit.
That is a very beautiful little bird, but not to be compared to the Great Paradise bird, or the Red Paradise bird, or the King Paradise bird, or, indeed, to several others which I saw brought from various parts of New Guinea, or from the neighbouring islands. One of the most curious and beautiful is the Red Paradise bird, which is said to be only found in the island of Waigiou.
This beautiful bird inhabits the mainland of New Guinea, and is also found in Salwatty, but is so rare that I was only able to obtain one imperfect native skin, and nothing whatever is known of its habits. I will now give a list of all the Birds of Paradise yet known, with the places they are believed to inhabit. Aru Islands. New Guinea. Mysol, Jobie. Waigiou.
During the whole of this voyage I had suffered greatly from sunburnt lips, owing to having exposed myself on deck all day to loon after our safety among the shoals and reefs near Waigiou.
We had a fair wind during the night and sailed north-east, finding ourselves in the morning about twenty miles west of the extremity of Waigiou with a number of islands intervening. About ten o'clock we ran full on to a coral reef, which alarmed us a good deal, but luckily got safe off again.
My men firmly believed there was something unlucky in the boat, and told me I ought to have had a certain ceremony gone through before starting, consisting of boring a hole in the bottom and pouring some kind of holy oil through it. It must be remembered that this was the season of the south-east monsoon, and yet we had not had even half a day's south-east wind since we left Waigiou.
The people of Waigiou are not truly indigenes of the island, which possesses no "Alfuros," or aboriginal inhabitants. They appear to be a mixed race, partly from Gilolo, partly from New Guinea.
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