PARADISEA, Lin. &c. PARADISE BIRD.
These birds, like the crows, have the bill straight, com pressed, strong, and notchless, and the nostrils covered, but with feathers of a velvety or metallic lustre, with a singular and splendid developement of the plumage of se veral parts of the body. Although they occur in Japan, China, Persia, and various regions of India, they are be lieved to be originally natives of New Guinea. Their history, till of late, was involved in fable ; for they were said never to alight on the ground from their birth to their death, to subsist entirely on dew, and to be produced without legs. The circumstance which gave rise to the last-mentioned tale was merely accidental, the legs and coarser parts of the wings having been pulled off, in the course of preparing the birds as an ornamental article of dress. The Dutch used to procure them chiefly from Banda, and propagated the story of their want of limbs, with a view to enhance their value. The Portuguese na vigators to the Indian Islands called them Passaros da Sol, or Birds of the Sun, in the same manner as the Egyp tians regarded the imaginary phoenix as a symbol of the annual revolution of the great luminary. The inhabitants of the island of Ternate call them Manu-co-Dewata, or Birds of God, which Buffon has Frenchified into Manu code. But his countryman, Vicillot, has more satisfacto rily illustrated the tribe, in a magnificent publication en titled Ilistoire Xaturelle des Oiseaux de Paradis. As no intelligent European, however, has watched their pro ceedings in a state of nature, their habits and economy arc still obscure.
P. major, Shaw ; Apoela,Lin. &c. ; Great Bird of Pa radise. Of a cinnamon hue, crown luteous ; throat gol den green, or yellow; side feathers very long and floating. We have adopted Dr. Shaw's specific epithet, because that of Linne, being deduced from fable, might tend to consecrate error. The length of this species, from the point of the bill to the end of the real tail, is about twelve inches ; but, if measured from the tip of the bill to the ter mination of the long hypochondroid feathers, the result will be nearly two feet.
Pigafetta; having had ocular demonstration of the exis tence of the legs in this species, and of the natives cut ting them off previously to selling them, recorded the facts hi his journal ; but so rooted was the contrary notion in Europe, that Aldrovandus charged Pigafetta with an audacious falsehood, and the acute Scaliger still adopted the populir persuasion. It was, moreover, supposed, that
these birds perpetually floated in the atmosphere, or sus pended themselves, for a short time, by the naked shafts, that they never descended to the earth till their last hour, and that all which had been procured, had fallen from their aerial elevation, during the moments immediately preceding their fate.
The great birds of paradise are found in the Molucca Islands, and in those surrounding New Guinea, particu larly Papua and Aru, where they arrive with the westerly or dry monsoon, and whence they return to New Guinea, on the setting in of the easterly, or wet monsoon. They are seen, going and returning, in flights of thirty or forty, conducted by a leader, which flies higher than the rest, and crying like starlings in their progress, preserving their light and voluminous plumage in proper trim, by invariably moving against the wind. In consequence of a sudden shifting of the wind, however, their long scapular fea thers are sometimes so much discomposed as to preclude flight, when they fall to the ground, or are lost in the wa ter. In the former case, they cannot easily reascend, without gaining an eminence, and are taken by the na tives, and killed on the spot. They are likewise caught with bird-lime, shot with blunted arrows, or intoxicated, by putting the berries of Menisliermum cocculus into the water which they are accustomed to drink. Their real food is not known with certainty ; according to some, they eat the red berries of Ficus benjamina, or the waringa tree, whilst others allege, that they are particularly fond of nutmegs; some again, assert, that they live on the lar ger moths and butterflies, and others, that they prey on small birds ; and it is not improbable, from the structure of their bill and claws, that they subsist both on animal and vegetable food. It is only for ornament that they are coveted by the inhabitants of the east, the chiefs wearing them on their turbans. The grandees of Persia, Surat, and the East Indies, use them as egrets, and even adorn their horses with them. A specimen of the greater para dise bird was once brought to England in a living state, but it had entirely lost its beautiful floating feathers, and did not long survive its arrival.