The outside of the nut Mr Hooker showed us was quite smooth, and of a somewhat triangular shape.
“However, the birds are hungry, and we will try and catch flight of one of our black friends taking his breakfast, and see how he manages.”
We quickly discussed our breakfast, and immediately afterwards set off in search of a kanary-tree. On one of the lower branches we were fortunate enough to see a black cockatoo perched. He had just taken one of the nuts end-ways into his bill, where he kept it firm by the pressure of the tongue. He then cut a transverse notch, so Mr Hooker declared, by the lateral sawing motion of the lower mandible. He next took hold of the nut by his foot, and biting off a piece of a neighbouring leaf, retained it in the deep notch of the upper mandible. Again seizing the nut, which was prevented from slipping by the elastic tissue of the leaf, he fixed the edge of the lower mandible in the notch, and by a powerful nip broke off a piece of the shell. Once more taking it in his claws, he inserted the very long and sharp point of his bill and picked out the kernel, which he seized hold of, morsel by morsel, with his curiously formed, extensible tongue. As no other bird in existence can compete with him in eating these nuts, he has always an abundance of food. Mr Hooker called this species the Microglossum aterrimum.
Soon afterwards, a native brought us a king-fisher with an enormously long tail, such as no other king-fisher possesses. It was the racket-tailed king-fisher. It had been caught sleeping in the hollow of the rocky banks of a neighbouring stream. It had a red bill, and Mr Hooker observed that he doubted whether it lived upon fish, for, from the earth clinging to its beak, he suspected rather that it preys on insects and minute shells which it picks up in the forests. Its shape was very graceful, the plumage being of a brilliant blue and white.
We caught also another cuscus, which Mr Hooker showed us was of the marsupial order; that is, having a pouch in which it carries its young, as does the kangaroo. There are several other marsupial animals in these islands, such as are found also in Australia and New Guinea, where alone they exist, some as small as mice. Though no mice exist in those regions, these little animals are about as mischievous—entering into houses, and eating their way through all sorts of materials, just in the manner that mice do. I cannot attempt to describe the numerous other birds which we shot or caught. Among them were many of brilliant plumage—pigeons, little parroquets, and numerous other small birds, similar to those found in Australia and New Guinea.
We spent three or four days in a native house, at which, at a rental of a few yards of cloth, some tobacco, and one or two other articles, we engaged rooms. It was raised on a platform seven feet high on posts; the walls were about four feet more, with a high pitched roof. The floor was composed of split bamboo, and a part of the sloping roof could be lifted and propped up, so as to admit light and air. Our apartments—for I have dignified them by that name—were divided from the rest of the house by a thatched partition. At one end of it was a cooking-place, with a clay floor, and shells for crockery. Several families occupied the other parts of the house, which was very extensive. There were generally half-a-dozen or more visitors in addition to the families. They led very easy idle lives, only working when it was absolutely necessary for the sake of obtaining food; and from morning till night the people were laughing, shouting, and talking without cessation. Such screams of laughter, such loud shouts—the women and children vying with the men—I have never elsewhere heard. They seemed to live very well, as the men and boys are capital archers, and never went out without their bows and arrows. With these they shot all sorts of birds, and sometimes kangaroos and pigs. Besides this, they had a variety of vegetables, although they grew no rice nor the cocoa-nut tree. They had plantains, yams, and, above all, the sugar-cane. They were continually eating it. It grows on the black vegetable soil to a great height and thickness. At all times of the day we found the people eating it, generally four or five together, each one with a yard of cane in one hand, and a knife in the other, and a basket between their legs. There they sat paring away at it, chewing, and throwing the refuse into the basket.
Mr Hooker was highly pleased with the collection of birds and insects which he had made. Engaging the services of two more natives to carry them, we returned to the boat, in which, in the course of a day’s sail, we reached the Dugong.