It was four months later that Wallace was first able to see the greater bird of paradise
in full plumage with its long trains of silky feathers. Lying in his hut before dawn he
awoke to their cries as they went to seek their breakfast. The mating season had begun
and he observed their extravagant ‘dance parties’, conducted to win the watching
female birds. As they danced, the males raised their tails into magnificent golden fans,
shook these quivering fans, and then froze like an open flower, before quivering again.
The first European to see the elaborate courtship dances of these birds, Wallace now
knew that the bird of paradise really deserves its name and must be ranked as one of
the most beautiful and most wonderful of all living things:
The birds had now commenced dancing parties, in certain trees in the forest ... On one
of these trees a dozen or twenty full-plumaged male birds assemble together, raise up
their wings, stretch out their necks, and elevate their exquisite plumes, keeping them in a
continual vibration ... so that the whole tree is filled with waving plumes in every variety of
attitude and motion. The bird itself is nearly as large as a crow, and is of a rich brown colour.
The head and the neck is of a pure straw yellow above, and rich metallic green beneath. The
long plumy tufts of golden orange feathers spring from the sides beneath each wing, and
when the bird is in repose are partly concealed by them.To collect the greater birds of paradise, the Aru islanders built hides in the lower
branches of the trees close to where the male birds performed their dances. From here
they could shoot their arrows tipped with a blunt head that would stun or kill the bird
without damaging the valuable feathers. Although Wallace himself was a collector
and planned to take away as many specimens of these magnificent birds as he could,
their beauty aroused contradictory thoughts within him and he was far-sighted enough
to see what might be the future of many rare and endangered species:
It seems sad that on the one hand such exquisite creatures should live out their lives and
exhibit their charms only in these wild and inhospitable regions ... while on the other
hand, should civilized man ever reach these distant lands, and bring moral, intellectual and
physical light into the recesses of these virgin forests, we may be sure that he will so disturb
the nicely balanced relations of organic and inorganic nature as to cause the disappearance,
and finally the extinction, of these very beings whose wonderful structure and beauty he
alone is fitted to appreciate and enjoy. This consideration must surely tell us that all living
things were not made for man.Returning to Dobbo with his prize specimens, Wallace found that the town was
now full of traders and he had to find temporary accommodation in what was called
Alfred Russel Wallace – The Voyage to the Aru Islands 155