Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/361

] ed a great number of new plants, and killed a variety of rare birds, amongst which was that species of the promerops which Buffon calls the promerops of New Guinea; also a large psitaccus aterrimus, and a new species of calao, to which I gave the name of the calao of the island Waygiou. Its beak is bent, of a dirty white colour, and about six inches in length. Each mandible is unequally notched, and the superior is surmounted by a hood of a yellow colour, flat at the top and ridged. The wings and body are black, the tail white, and the neck of a lively red. (See Plate XI.) This beautiful bird is two feet in length, from the tip of the beak to the extremity of the feet.

I saw several wild cocks in the woods. The female of this species, which was brought us by the natives, was scarcely larger than a partridge, and yet its eggs were as large again as those of our domestic hen. This wild species of the dunghill-cock is black, that which I had found in the forests of Java was grey.

The crowned pheasant of India (columba coronata) is very common in these thick forests, where we found here and there wild orange trees, the fruit of which furnished our scorbutic patients with a very wholesome sort of lemonade.

The natives told us, that the road-stead where