New Bird Of
pp. 23-24 · Read in the full issue
Paradise
First Reported by Jock Hides
From Our Own Correspondent
Port Moresby, Jan. 2.
IT appears that the beautiful new Bird of Paradise, collected recently by Messrs. J. L. Taylor and J. R. Black on the Hagen-Sepik patrol, and described for science by the Australian Museum, Sydney, was first. discovered by the late Mr Jack Hides, when camping on the slopes of Mt. Champion, on his famous Purari patrol, in 1935.
In Mr. Hides’s official report, under date of May 2, 1935, there appears:— “ . We were encamped on a shoulder of Mt. Champion, with its cloud-wrapped heights. . . . Pairs of an interesting species of Paradise Bird were observed flitting through the moss - covered branches of trees around the camp. The male birds had two, long, ivory-white feathers, as a tail, which made flicking sounds as the birds trailed them through the air. I did not know of this species, so for the information of our natural history, I had one of the police shoot a male bird, and the tail-feathers were carefully packed away”.
In 1938, Mr. F. Shaw Mayer, who had been collecting live birds in Papua for the London Zoo, forwarded two long, white, tail-feathers of an unknown Bird of Paradise to the Natural History De partment of the British Museum, with the information that he had received them from a missionary, who had pro cured them from a native who was wear ing them as a head-dress, 80 miles west of Mt. Hagen.
Mr. Shaw Mayer wrote that he had first read of them, as belonging to a Bird of Paradise, in Mr. Hides’s book, “Papuan Wonderland” (in which he described the Purari patrol) where, on page 106, Mr. Hides mentioned seeing a number of such birds, the male bird having long, white tail-feathers.
Mr. Shaw Mayer had previously met Mr. O’Malley, who had accompanied Mr.
Hides on the patrol, and also the Fox brothers (two miners who had been through country west of Mt. Hagen) and their description of these birds, together with that of Mr. Hides, confirmed his opinion that the birds were a species of Astrapia, rather similar to Princess Step hanie’s Bird of Paradise.
The British Museum, becoming in terested, wrote in December, 1938, to the Lieutenant-Governor of Papua (Sir Hubert Murray), asking that, as they were most anxious to obtain complete specimens of these birds, whether it would be possible to give instructions to patrols to bring back both male and lemale specimens. As a result, Mr. Ivan Champion, in charge of the Lake Kutubu Police Camp, was requested by radio to secure specimens. Mr, Champion pre viously, in a report dated September, 1938, had stated; “We broke camp, at 6.46 a.m. ... we saw a new (to us) bird of paradise. It was flitting about between the trees some two hundred yards from the camp. The body feathers were black or dark blue and it had two very white feathery streamers, or tail feathers, about two feet long. Hides records seeing them at an altitude ot 8.200 ft. on the slopes of Mt. Champion.
Apparently, it did not occur to Mr.
Hides, when collecting the tail-feathers, that the whole skin of the bird was necessary for identification.
The specimen of the bird received by
the Australian Museum, and named “McNicoll’s Ribbon-Tailed Bird of Para dise”, is nine inches long. Its tail, con sisting chiefly of two white plumes, is nearly three feet long.
The discovery has aroused interest in scientific circles throughout the world.
Both British and American collectors had spent thousands of pounds in a search for new species of Birds of Para dise in New Guinea in the past few years, but without result.