such extreme beauty or singularity, as to vie with, or even surpass, anything that
even South America can produce.
One afternoon when I was arranging my insects, and surrounded by a crowd
of wondering spectators, I showed one of them how to look at a small insect with
a hand-lens, which caused such evident wonder that all the rest wanted to see it
too. I therefore fixed the glass firmly to a piece of soft wood at the proper focus,
and put under it a little spiny beetle of the genus Hispa, and then passed it round
for examination. The excitement was immense. Some declared it was a yard
long; others were frightened, and instantly dropped it, and all were as much
astonished, and made as much shouting and gesticulation, as children at a
pantomime, or at a Christmas exhibition of the oxyhydrogen microscope. And
all this excitement was produced by a little pocket lens, an inch and a half focus,
and therefore magnifying only four or five times, but which to their
unaccustomed eyes appeared to enlarge a hundred fold.
On the last day of my stay here, one of my hunters succeeded in finding and
shooting the beautiful Nicobar pigeon, of which I had been so long in search.
None of the residents had ever seen it, which shows that it is rare and slay. My
specimen was a female in beautiful condition, and the glassy coppery and green
of its plumage, the snow-white tail and beautiful pendent feathers of the neck,
were greatly admired. I subsequently obtained a specimen in New Guinea; and
once saw it in the Kaióa islands. It is found also in some small islands near
Macassar, in others near Borneo; and in the Nicobar islands, whence it receives
its name. It is a ground feeder, only going upon trees to roost, and is a very
heavy fleshy bird. This may account far the fact of its being found chiefly on
very small islands, while in the western half of the Archipelago, it seems entirely
absent from the larger ones. Being a ground feeder it is subject to the attacks of
carnivorous quadrupeds, which are not found in the very small islands. Its wide
distribution over the whole length of the Archipelago; from extreme west to east,
is however very extraordinary, since, with the exception of a few of the birds of
prey, not a single land bird has so wide a range. Ground-feeding birds are
generally deficient in power of extended flight, and this species is so bulky and
heavy that it appears at first sight quite unable to fly a mile. A closer
examination shows, however, that its wings are remarkably large, perhaps in
proportion to its size larger than those of any other pigeon, and its pectoral
muscles are immense. A fact communicated to me by the son of my friend Mr.
Duivenboden of Ternate, would show that, in accordance with these peculiarities
of structure, it possesses the power of flying long distances. Mr. D. established
an oil factory on a small coral island, a hundred miles north of New Guinea, with