able to learn anythit
learned Dutchmen, who wrote in Latin,
gives these names in 1598, and tells us that no one ; | a i |
turning towards the sun, and never lighting on the earth till they. die ; fot ue a oe feet nor wings,
as, he adds, may be seen by the birds carried to India, and sometimes to Holland ; but being very costly they
More than a hundred years later Mr. William Funnel, who accompanied Dampier,
saw specimens at Amboyna, and was told that they came to Banda to

1 authentic about them, called them ‘ Passaros de Sol’ (or Birds of the Sun) ; while the
i called them ‘Avis paradiseus ’ (or Paradise-bird). John van Linschoten
has seen these birds alive ; for they live in the air, always

are rarely seen in Europe.
and wrote an account of the voyage, 7 og
eat nutmegs, which intoxicated them, and made them fall down S@UEEIeSS: when they were killed by ants.
Down to 1760, when Linnzeus named the largest species Paradisea apoda (the footless Paradise-bird), no
ad been seen in Europe, and absolutely nothing was known about them. And even now,

tenet i
perfect specimen |
ater, most books state that they migrate annually to Ternate, Banda, and Amboyna,

a hundred years | : ; :
whereas the fact is that they are as completely unknown in these islands in a wild state as they are in England.”
I may remark that Edwards had probably a complete specimen in 1750, as he mentions the figures in ue
older authors, such as Willughby, and says, “ As none of these were satisfactory to me, I have given this
figure and description of a perfect bird, which may more than answer oS purposes of so HED) ;’ and
again :—‘It hath legs and feet of a moderate proportion and strength for its bigness, shaped much like those
of Pyes or Jays, of a dark brown colour, armed with claws of middling strength.”

Dr. Wallace continues :—‘* The Great Bird of Paradise is very active and vigorous, and seems to be in
constant motion all day long. It is very abundant, small flocks of females and young males being constantly met
with ; and though the full-plumaged birds are less plentiful, their loud cries, which are heard daily, show that
they also are very numerous. Their note is ‘ Wauk-wauk-wauk-wok-wok-wok,’ and is so loud and shrill as to
be heard at a great distance, and to form the most prominent and characteristic animal-sound in the Aru
Islands. The mode of nidification is unknown ; but the natives told me that the nest was made of leaves placed
on an ants’ nest, or on some projecting limb of a very lofty tree, and believe that it contains only one young
bird. The egg is quite unknown, and the natives declared they had never seen it ; and a very high reward
offered for one by a Dutch official did not meet with success. They moult about January or February ; and
in May, when they are in full plumage, the males assemble early in the morning to exhibit themselves. This
habit enables the natives to obtain specimens with comparative ease. As soon as they find that the birds have
fixed upon a tree on which to assemble, they build a little shelter of palm leaves in a convenient place among
the branches; and the hunter ensconces himself in it before daylight, armed with his bow and a number of arrows
terminating in a round knob. A boy waits at the foot of the tree; and when the birds come at sunrise, and
a sufficient number have assembled, and have begun to dance, the hunter shoots with his blunt arrow so
strongly as to stun the bird, which drops down, and is secured and killed by the boy without its plamage being
injured by a drop of blood. The rest take no notice, and fall one after another till some of them take the
alarm.”

The descriptions are taken from my ‘ Catalogue of the Birds in the British Museum ’ :—

‘* Adult male. General colour above maroon-brown, including the entire back and wings ; head and neck
clothed in compressed thick-set feathers of a straw-yellow colour, velvety in texture ; round the eye a narrow
line of black ; forehead, lores, cheeks, throat, and fore neck dark metallic green, all the plumes close-set and
velvety, the forehead, lores, and chin having a velvety black appearance under certain lights, and forming as
it were a mask; breast deep purplish brown, shading gradually into maroon-brown on the abdomen and
under tail-coverts; under wing-coverts and inner lining of wings maroon-brown ; tail maroon-brown like the
back, the two centre feathers enormously elongated into two wire-like shafts about 30 inches long ; from the
flanks spring two enormous tufts of beautiful plumes, bright yellow for two-thirds of their length, and then
shading into chocolate-brown ; the shafts produced at the tips of the feathers and white, the plumes towards
their extremities very lax, the webs separate and very distinct; at the base of these side-tufts are several
rigid plumes of bright yellow, some of which end in blood-red, giving the appearance of being streaked with
blood-red ; bill lead-colour, inclining to greenish white at the tip; legs and feet flesh-colour. Total length
18 inches, culmen 1°6, wing 9°35, tail 7-2, tarsus 2:2.

“Adult female. General colour al

1 over maroon-brown, deepening to purplish chestnut on the head, neck,
and chest;

plumes of the head close-set and velvety, and the nape somewhat tinged with straw-yellow ;
flank-plumes lax and elongated, maroon-brown like the breast and abdomen ; two centre tail-feathers rather
pemted. Total length 15-3 inches, culmen 1°45, wing 7°5, tail 6-4, tarsus 1-85.”

The only known egg of this Paradise-bird exists jn the Dresden Museum, and has been described by
Dr. A. B. Meyer. It has a peculiar reddish colour all over, marked with blotches of darker rufous or
chestnut-brown, with a few large spots of black near the larger end. Length 1:55 inches, diam. 1:1. The
figure by Dr. von Madardsz in the ‘ Zeitschrift’ ’

; represents the egg as much too small.
The figures are take

n from specimens in the British Museum, formerly in the Gould Collection.