Details from cover

From the book ...

"Packing up my camera and placing it in the boat, I get a boy to carry my gun, and taking the insect-net myself, start for a short walk through the yam gardens and forest immediately at the back of the village. Half a dozen imps of boys attempt to accompany me, but I tell them I do not want them, as their continual chatter would prevent me getting within sight of any bird. Some seem reluctant to leave me, but at last, after some disparaging remarks hurled as a Parthian shot at the head of the boy who is carrying the fun, they drop away.

"I have a delightful ramble along the forest tracks for a couple of hours, during which I fill my collecting-box, and as I know what to discard, most of the insects caught are of rare or local species. I also shoot three or four specimens of a fly-catcher with chestnut body, grey wings, and white head, which appears strange to me, and afterwards proves to be a new species, which has been named by Mr. Sharp Pomarea Florentiae, after my wife.

"I notice a large orchid growing high out of reach upon a dead tree. It is apparently a Grammatophyllum, a stranger hitherto to me, but afterwards found to be not umcommon upon other islands. It was finished flowering, but the sight of the great seed-pods, as large as ducks' eggs, hanging from the flower-spike, make me long to see it in bloom. My attendant sprite expresses himself unable or unwilling to climb the tree, although I hint at untold wealth of tobacco as recompense.

"I am engaged in the attempt to compass somehow or other the attainment of the orchid in question, when a sudden tropical shower forces me to seek shelter somewhere."