CHAPTER IIIThe Great Bird of ParadiseThe Great Bird of Paradise lives in the middle of the great island called New Guinea, and all over some quite little islands close to it which are called the Aru Islands. He is the largest of the Birds of Paradise, and perhaps he is the most beautiful, but it is not so easy to be sure aboutthat. However, we shall see what you think of him. His body and wings and tail are brown. “What, only brown?” you cry. “That is like a sparrow.” Ah, but wait. It is notquitelike a sparrow. It is a beautiful, rich,coffee-brown, and on the breast it deepens into a most lovely, dark,purple-violetbrown. There! That is different to being just brown like a sparrow, is it not? Then the head and neck are yellow, not a common yellow, but a very pretty, light, delicate yellow, like straw. Sometimes ladies have hair of that colour, and when they have, then people look at them and say, “What beautiful hair!” which is just what they themselves say,sometimes, when they look in the glass. These feathers are very short and set closely together, which makes them look like plush or velvet, so you can think how handsome they must be. What would you think if you were to go out for a walk and see a bird flying about with a yellow plush or yellow velvet head? But the throat is handsomer still.Thatis a glorious, gleaming, metallic green. Some feathers are called “metallic,” because when the light shines on them they flash it back again just as a bright piece of metal does; a helmet or a breastplate, for instance. You know howtheyflash and gleam in the sunshine when the Horse-Guards ride by. At least, if you have seen the Horse-Guards, you do, and if you have not, well, I daresay you have seen it in a dish-cover or a bright coal-scuttle. But fancy feathers as soft as velvet, gleaming as if they were polished metal, but gleaming all emerald green as if they were jewels—emeralds—too! Then on the forehead and the chin of this bird—by which I mean just under the beak—there are glossy velvety plumes of a deeper green colour. The other is emerald. These are like the deep, lovely greens that one sees sometimes in the fiery opal or the mother-of-pearl. What jewellery! and out of it all flash two other jewels—the bird's two eyes—which are of a beautiful bright yellow colour to match with the yellowplush of its head. Then this bird has a pale blue beak and pale pink legs, and I am sure if he thinks himself very handsome, you canhardlycall him conceited. For he would be handsome only with this that I have told you about; that would be quite enough to make him a beautiful bird without anything else.Buthashe anything else—any other kind of beautybesideswhat I have told you about? Listen. The emerald throat and the yellow velvet-plush head and the blue beak and the pink legs are as nothing, nothing whatever, compared to the glorious plumes which this Bird of Paradise has on each side of his body. Oh, you never saw such plumes, and you cannot think how lovely they are. There are two of them—one on each side—and each one is made up of a number of very long, soft, delicate silky feathers, which are of an orange-gold or golden-orange colour, and so bright and glossy that they shine in the sun like floss-silk. Just where they spring from the body each one of them has a stripe of deep crimson-red, and, towards the top, they soften into a pretty pale, mauvy brown. Even one feather like that on each side would be beautiful—or one all by itself in the middle—but fancy aplumeof them on each side, a thick plume too, though each feather is so slender and delicate—there are so many of them. They look lovely enough when they stream outbehind as the bird flies, for they are twice as long as its whole body, so, of course, the two plumes come together and make one lovely large one that lies as softly on the air as the feather of a swan does on the water. The body, then, is almost covered up in all these soft feathers, so that it is just like looking at a flying plume with wings and a head to it.Yes, they look lovely enough then, these glorious plumes; but sometimes they look lovelier still, and that is when the Great Bird of Paradise raises them both up above its back so that they shoot into the air like two golden feather-fountains that mingle together and bend over and fall in spray all around, only it is a spray of feathers—not a real spray—and, instead of falling, they only wave and dance. Such a glorious, plumy cascade! The bird himself is almost hidden in his own shower-bath, but the emerald throat and the yellow-plush head look out of it and gleam like jewels as he peeps and peers about from side to side to see if any one is looking at him. For, of course, the Great Bird of Paradise does not make himself soverybeautiful just for nothing. When he shoots up his feather-fountains and sits in a soft, silky shower-bath, he does it to be looked at, and the person he wants to look at him most is the hen Great Bird of Paradise, for—do you know andcanyou believe it?—the poor hen Great Bird of Paradise isnotbeautiful.She has no wonderful plumes—she has no plumes at all—and out of all those splendid colours I have told you about—orangy-gold and emerald green and all the rest of them—she has only one, which is the coffee-brown. Now, of course, a nice rich coffee-brown is a very good colour, but still, by itself it is not enough to make a bird one of the most beautiful birds in the world. So when a bird isonlycoffee-brown, then, compared to a bird who has all those other colours and the most wonderful plumes as well, it is quite a plain bird. So a poor hen Great Bird of Paradise is quite a plain bird compared to her handsome husband, with his emerald throat and yellow-plush head and his wonderful orangy-gold plumes.But, then, if the poor hen bird has no glorious plumes of her own, she is always looking at them, always having them spread out on purpose for her to look at, and that must be very pleasant indeed. When the male Great Birds of Paradise wish to show their poor plain hens how handsome they are—just to comfort them and make them not mind being plain themselves—they come to a particular kind of tree in the forest, a tree that has a great many wide-spreading branches at the top, with not so very many leaves upon them, so that it is easy for them to be seen by the hens, who are sitting in other trees near, all ready to watch them. Then they raise up theirwings above their backs, stretch out their emerald necks, bow their yellow heads politely to each other, and shoot up their golden feather-fountains, making each of the long, plumy tufts tremble and vibrate and quiver, as they droop all over them and almost cover them up. The plumes begin from under the wings—that is why they lift their wings up first so that they can shoot straight up and so that the hen birds may see the little stripes of red, which I told you about, and which look like little crimson clouds floating in a little golden sunset. How beautiful they must look! Perhaps there may be a dozen Great Birds of Paradise, all bowing their heads and quivering their plumes, on a dozen branches of the tree, whilst a dozen more will be flying about from one branch to another, so that the tree and the air are full of beauty. The air never had anything to float upon her softer or lovelier than those golden floating plumes, and no tree ever bore blossomsquiteso beautiful as those wonderful golden Paradise-flowers. And both the air and the trees are happy. Both of them whisper, “Oh thank you, thank you, Birds of Paradise.” Of course the Birds of Paradise are happy too. They are happy to have such beauty and to be able to show it to the hens, who sit hidden in the trees and bushes around, andtheyperhaps—the hens for whom it is all done—are happiest of all. Then it is allhappiness—and beauty. Beauty and happiness, those are the two things it is made up of.There are not so many things that are made up of just those two. Try and think of some. A party, perhaps you may say (only it must be a juvenile one), or a pantomime. Well, of course, there is anenormousamount of beauty and happiness at things of that kind; but is itallbeauty and happiness? Notquiteall, I think. Still I am sure you would think it a very unkind thing if somebody were to break up a party before it were over, or to stop a pantomime before the last act had been performed. You would think that cruel, I am sure. And now if you were looking at those beautiful, happy Birds of Paradise attheirparty or pantomime (Ithinkit is as pretty as a transformation scene), and all at once, when they were just in the middle of it, first one and then another of them were to fall down dead to the ground, till at last half of them lay there underneath the tree and the rest had flown away, would you not thinkthata most cruel and dreadful thing? Where would be the beauty and the happiness now? It would all be gone. Joy would have been changed into sorrow, and beautyalmostinto ugliness—for a dead bird isalmostugly compared to a beautiful, living one. And life would have been changed into death—yes, andsuchlife, the life of happy, lovely birds, ofBirds of Paradise. And I think that if you were there and saw that happen—saw those beautiful birds fall down dead—murdered—all of a sudden—you would be sorry and angry too, and you would say that only a demon could have done so wicked a thing.You would be right if you were to say so. Itcouldonly be a demon—that same little demon that I told you about who sang a charm to send the Goddess of Pity to sleep and then froze the hearts of the women with his bad, wicked powder. That wretched little demon who wears the magic suit of clothes, which makes him seem all that he ought to be, is always killing the poor Birds of Paradise, just when they are feeling so happy and looking so beautiful. He does not do it himself (any more than the women), for, as he could not be in more than one place at a time, he would not be able to kill a sufficient number to satisfy him, and besides he has a great many other things of the same kind, but more important, to do. So he makes his servants do it. That has always been his plan. He has servants all over the world, and you must not think that they are as bad as himself, for that is not the case at all. They are not bad, but enchanted, so that they do all sorts of bad things without having any idea that they are bad. In fact they generally think that they are the finest things in the world. The demon has all sorts oflittle bottles with different kinds of powders in them, one for every kind of servant that he wants. In his little private workshop they all stand in rows upon a shelf and every one has a different label on it, so that he knows which to take up in a minute. One is labelled “Glory,” and has a powder in it of all sorts of different colours, scarlet, blue, green, white, and a little of it dirty yellow. The man on whom a grain of this powder falls will always be wanting to kill people, and the more he kills the better man he will think himself, and so, too, will other people think him. You may imagine what a lot of work the demon can get out of a servant like that. Another one is labelled “Justice,” and whoever the powder in that falls on will go through life always saying what he doesn't believe, and trying to make other people believe it. Others are labelled “Patriotism,” “Duty,” “Culture,” “Refinement,” “Taste,” “Sensibility,” and so on (all which words your mother will explain to you). The demon chooses them according to the kind of thing he wants done, and all on whom any of the powders inside the bottles fall become his servants in different ways—very grand ways, too, they are often thought—and go on serving him and thinking well of themselves, and being held always in great honour and respect, all their lives.Now you must not, of course, think that thesebottlesreallycontain the things that are written on their labels. No, indeed, they arefalselabels, for, you see,thesebottles stand in the window where people can see them, the demon does not keep them in his pocket like those other two I told you of. So when people see them they think that they have good powders instead of bad ones inside them, and when the stoppers are taken out the powders fly into their eyes, and they are blinded and never know the difference. Almost every one is blinded, for the demon just stands at the window of his workshop and blows his powders through the world. It is not necessary for him to walk up and down in it sprinkling them about. That would be a long, tedious way of doing things. He just blows them, and he need never be afraid of blowing too much away, for his bottles are magic bottles and always full. Outside his window there is always a great crowd looking at the bottles and admiring them, whilst the demon stands there in his magic suit of clothes, and seems to every one to be just what he ought to be.They say that somewhere else in the world there is a very beautiful house with a radiant angel inside it, and that there, in vases of crystal and diamond—or something like crystal and diamond, but very much more beautiful—are the real things which the demon only pretends to have in his ugly little bottles. Anyone has only to step in and ask for them, and the angel will open the vase and shed the essence that is inside it into his very heart. But—is it not funny?—hardly anybody ever goes into that house, and the few who do cannot persuade others to follow them. I will tell you why this is. The beautiful house does notlooklike a beautiful house at all to most people, and the angel of light who sits in the open doorway seems to them to be only a shabbily dressed, unfashionable sort of person. Nobody sees his wings, or, if they do, they think wings are vulgar and out of date. It is the demon who is to blame for this. He has had time to blow his magic powders all about the world, and they have blinded people's eyes and made what is really beautiful seem mean and ugly to them—for the demon's powders can blind the eyes as well as freeze the heart. But the little workshop of the demon, which is really as mean and wretched a place as you could find,thatpeople think glorious and beautiful, and his ugly bottles are to them as vases of crystal and diamond. So they crowd about the demon's workshop, thinking it to be the angel's house, and into the angel's house they never go, for they think a demon—or at least an unfashionably dressed person with wings—which are out of date—lives there.Now, it is one of those bottles with the false labels which the demon takes when he wants one of hisservants in that part of the world to kill the Great Bird of Paradise; for I don't think the men in those countries would much mind what the women said to them. I cannot tell you which bottle it is, but it is none of those that I have told you about. The label upon it is not nearly such a grand one, and the powder is of a much coarser grain, for the man that the demon is going to blow it at is only a poor savage, who is black and nearly naked, and who is not able to serve him in such important ways as are people of a lighter colour and less scantily dressed. He is only fit to do little odd jobs now and again, and his wages are very low in consequence. Even what he gets he is often not allowed to keep, for the demon's upper servants take them away from him, and he is not strong enough to resist. One of his odd jobs is killing the poor Great Birds of Paradise, and now I will tell you how he does it. Only you must not be angry with him, or even with the other people whose servant hethinkshe is, though they are all of themreallythe servants of one master, that wretched little demon in the magic suit of clothes, which makes him seem nice to everybody, although he is so nasty. It isheyou must be angry with, for it is he who does all the mischief, in the way I have told you. He gets people into his power; but, if you do as I tell you, perhaps you will be able to save them from him,and to save the poor, beautiful Birds of Paradise, as well as other beautiful birds, from being killed and killed until they are all dead. Think what a lot of good you will have done, then, to have kept such beauty safe in the world, when it might have been lost out of it for ever. Yes, and you will have done more good than that even, for you will have helped to wake up the Goddess of Pity, and when once she is awake there will be so much for her to do—for, ah! she has been asleep so long.But, now, listen. I have told you that the man who kills the Great Bird of Paradise is black and naked and a savage. But he is not a negro, although he is rather like one. His hair is something like a negro's hair, but there is much more of it. In fact it is quite a mop, and he is very proud of it. He is a Papuan, and the islands that he lives in are called the Papuan Islands, and are a very long way from Africa, which is where the negroes live. He is a tall, fine-looking man, with a beautiful figure, and he looks very much better naked than he would do if he were dressed. And when I said that he was black, this was notquitetrue, because he is really brown, but it is such a very dark brown that it looks black, and when a man is such a very dark brown that he looks black, then peoplewillcall him a black man, so that is what we will call this Papuan. Now, thisblack man is very quick and active—which is what most savages are—and he can climb trees almost as well as a monkey. When he finds one of those trees where the Great Birds of Paradise have their parties, their “Sacalelies” (that is whathecalls them, it is a word that means a dancing-party), he climbs up into it early in the morning, before it is daylight, and waits for them to come. It does not matter how tall the tree is (and this kind of tree is very tall), or how dark it may be, this naked Papuan savage climbs up it quite easily and without slipping, just like a monkey. He takes up with him some leafy branches of another tree, and with these he makes a little screen to sit under, so that the Birds of Paradise shall not see him. Besides this, he takes his bow and arrows to shoot the poor birds with, for he does not use a gun, which would make too much noise, and, besides, the shot would hurt the beautiful plumage. The arrows do not hurt the plumage as the shot would, because at the end of each one there is a piece of wood, shaped something like an acorn, but as large as a teacup, and the large end of it makes what would be the point of an ordinary arrow. When the poor birds are hit with that great, smooth piece of wood they are killed, because it hits them so hard, but their plumage is not hurt at all, for nothing has gone into the skin, or torn the feathers.PAPUAN SHOOTING BIRDS OF PARADISESo the naked black man waits behind his screen for the Great Birds of Paradise to come, and as soon as they come and begin to spread their plumes, he shoots first one and then another of them with his great wooden arrows, and they fall down dead underneath the tree. And, do you know, they are so occupied in showing off their beautiful plumes, and so happy and excited as they spread them out and look through them, or fly like little feathery cascades from branch to branch, that it is not till quite a number of them have been killed (for the black savage does not often miss his aim) that the others take fright and fly away. Then the black man climbs down from the tree and picks up the poor, beautiful, dead birds and takes them to another man who is yellow and not quite so naked as he is, who gives him something for them, but not so much as he ought to. The yellow man cheats the black man, and, when he has cheated him, he takes the skins to a white man, who is quite dressed and civilised, and sells them to him, and the white man cheatshima good deal more thanhehas cheated the black man—for, of course, the white man is the cleverest of the three. (You see there are yellow men in those countries—called Malays—as well as black men, and a good many white men go there as well.) Then the white man puts all the beautiful skins that he has boughtfrom the yellow man, as well as a great many others which have been brought to him from all the country and from all the islands round about, into one of those large kinds of boxes called “crates,” that I have told you about, and it is put on board a ship where there are a great many others of the same kind, all full of the skins and feathers of beautiful birds that have been killed. And the ship sails to England, and then up the Thames to London, where the crates are taken out and put into great vans and driven away to the great ugly warehouses to be unpacked and laid on the floor there in a heap, all as I have told you. You know what happens to them then.And now I will tell you something funny that I daresay you would never have thought of, but which is quite true all the same. That great heap of brightly coloured feathers lying on the floor, to make which hundreds of thousands of the most beautiful birds in the world have been killed, and hundreds of hundreds of thousands of their young ones that would have grown up beautiful, too, have been starved to death in the nest—that great big heap of the loveliest plumage is not so lovely, not nearly so beautiful as one living thrush or one living blackbird or one living swallow or one living robin-redbreast. That is the difference between life and death. A live Bird of Paradise is hundredsof times more beautiful than a live blackbird or thrush or swallow or robin-redbreast, but when it is dead it is not so beautiful as they are. Its feathers are more beautiful, still, of course, but where are thewavingfeathers, thefloatingplumes, the bright eyes, the quick, graceful movements, and the flight—the glorious flight—of a bird. They are gone, they are gone for ever, and, in their place, there is only stiffness and deadness and dustiness. Oh never, never wish to see a dead Bird of Paradise in a hat, when you can see a living thrush or blackbird on the lawn of your garden, or a living swallow flying over it. And even if you can never see a living Bird of Paradise—as I daresay you never will be able to—what then?—what then? You cannot see everything, but have you not got an imagination (your mother, who has got one, will tell you what it is), and is it not better to imagine a beautiful bird flying about in life and loveliness than to see it dead? And the people who have these hats with the Birds of Paradise, or with other beautiful birds, sewn into them, how much do you think they really care about them? Do they ever look at them after they have once bought them? Oh no, they never do. Sometimes they look in the glass with the hat on—yes—but then it is only to see themselvesinthe hat, not the hat.So now you know what kind of birds the Birds ofParadise are, and how very beautiful they are, and you know how gloriously beautiful the Great Bird of Paradise is, and how it is killed and not allowed to live and be happy, just because it is so beautiful. But now these Great Birds of Paradise live only in some quite small islands and just in one part of one large one, and although there may be a good many of them where they do live, yet if they are always being killed in that way, very soon there will be no more of them left. Then there will be no more Great Birds of Paradise in the world—for they do not live outside those islands—and when they are once gone they can never, never come again.But do you not think that it would be a dreadful thing if such a bird as this—this beautiful Great Bird of Paradise that I have told you about—were to be killed and killed until it was not in the world any more? Of course you think it would be a dreadful thing, and I am sure that you would prevent it if you could. And youcanprevent it—now—yes,now—and in the easiest way possible. All you have to do—only you must do it directly—is to put your arms round your mother's neck and make her promise never, never to wear a hat with the feathers of a Great Bird of Paradise in it. Of course she will promise, if you ask her in that way, and keep on, and when she once has promised you must not let herforget it. You must remind her of it from time to time (“Remember, mother, youpromised”), and, especially, when you hear her talking about getting a new hat. And when you have made her promise about herself, then you must make her promise never to letyouwear a hat of the sort (of course when you are grown-up and buy your own hats you never will), or your sisters either. And if you have a sister very much older than yourself who buys her own hats, then you can makeherpromise too. Perhapsthatwill be less easy, but she will do it in time if you tease her enough about it and want her to read the book. And then if you can get any other lady to promise, well, the more who do, the better chance there will be for the beautiful Great Bird of Paradise. Only you must make your mother promise first—that is the chief thing—and, to do it, you must tell her all about the wicked little demon, with his powders and his charm to send the Goddess of Pity to sleep. So now go to your mother, go at once, do not wait, or, if your mother is out anywhere, you must only wait till she comes home again.
The Great Bird of Paradise lives in the middle of the great island called New Guinea, and all over some quite little islands close to it which are called the Aru Islands. He is the largest of the Birds of Paradise, and perhaps he is the most beautiful, but it is not so easy to be sure aboutthat. However, we shall see what you think of him. His body and wings and tail are brown. “What, only brown?” you cry. “That is like a sparrow.” Ah, but wait. It is notquitelike a sparrow. It is a beautiful, rich,coffee-brown, and on the breast it deepens into a most lovely, dark,purple-violetbrown. There! That is different to being just brown like a sparrow, is it not? Then the head and neck are yellow, not a common yellow, but a very pretty, light, delicate yellow, like straw. Sometimes ladies have hair of that colour, and when they have, then people look at them and say, “What beautiful hair!” which is just what they themselves say,sometimes, when they look in the glass. These feathers are very short and set closely together, which makes them look like plush or velvet, so you can think how handsome they must be. What would you think if you were to go out for a walk and see a bird flying about with a yellow plush or yellow velvet head? But the throat is handsomer still.Thatis a glorious, gleaming, metallic green. Some feathers are called “metallic,” because when the light shines on them they flash it back again just as a bright piece of metal does; a helmet or a breastplate, for instance. You know howtheyflash and gleam in the sunshine when the Horse-Guards ride by. At least, if you have seen the Horse-Guards, you do, and if you have not, well, I daresay you have seen it in a dish-cover or a bright coal-scuttle. But fancy feathers as soft as velvet, gleaming as if they were polished metal, but gleaming all emerald green as if they were jewels—emeralds—too! Then on the forehead and the chin of this bird—by which I mean just under the beak—there are glossy velvety plumes of a deeper green colour. The other is emerald. These are like the deep, lovely greens that one sees sometimes in the fiery opal or the mother-of-pearl. What jewellery! and out of it all flash two other jewels—the bird's two eyes—which are of a beautiful bright yellow colour to match with the yellowplush of its head. Then this bird has a pale blue beak and pale pink legs, and I am sure if he thinks himself very handsome, you canhardlycall him conceited. For he would be handsome only with this that I have told you about; that would be quite enough to make him a beautiful bird without anything else.
Buthashe anything else—any other kind of beautybesideswhat I have told you about? Listen. The emerald throat and the yellow velvet-plush head and the blue beak and the pink legs are as nothing, nothing whatever, compared to the glorious plumes which this Bird of Paradise has on each side of his body. Oh, you never saw such plumes, and you cannot think how lovely they are. There are two of them—one on each side—and each one is made up of a number of very long, soft, delicate silky feathers, which are of an orange-gold or golden-orange colour, and so bright and glossy that they shine in the sun like floss-silk. Just where they spring from the body each one of them has a stripe of deep crimson-red, and, towards the top, they soften into a pretty pale, mauvy brown. Even one feather like that on each side would be beautiful—or one all by itself in the middle—but fancy aplumeof them on each side, a thick plume too, though each feather is so slender and delicate—there are so many of them. They look lovely enough when they stream outbehind as the bird flies, for they are twice as long as its whole body, so, of course, the two plumes come together and make one lovely large one that lies as softly on the air as the feather of a swan does on the water. The body, then, is almost covered up in all these soft feathers, so that it is just like looking at a flying plume with wings and a head to it.
Yes, they look lovely enough then, these glorious plumes; but sometimes they look lovelier still, and that is when the Great Bird of Paradise raises them both up above its back so that they shoot into the air like two golden feather-fountains that mingle together and bend over and fall in spray all around, only it is a spray of feathers—not a real spray—and, instead of falling, they only wave and dance. Such a glorious, plumy cascade! The bird himself is almost hidden in his own shower-bath, but the emerald throat and the yellow-plush head look out of it and gleam like jewels as he peeps and peers about from side to side to see if any one is looking at him. For, of course, the Great Bird of Paradise does not make himself soverybeautiful just for nothing. When he shoots up his feather-fountains and sits in a soft, silky shower-bath, he does it to be looked at, and the person he wants to look at him most is the hen Great Bird of Paradise, for—do you know andcanyou believe it?—the poor hen Great Bird of Paradise isnotbeautiful.She has no wonderful plumes—she has no plumes at all—and out of all those splendid colours I have told you about—orangy-gold and emerald green and all the rest of them—she has only one, which is the coffee-brown. Now, of course, a nice rich coffee-brown is a very good colour, but still, by itself it is not enough to make a bird one of the most beautiful birds in the world. So when a bird isonlycoffee-brown, then, compared to a bird who has all those other colours and the most wonderful plumes as well, it is quite a plain bird. So a poor hen Great Bird of Paradise is quite a plain bird compared to her handsome husband, with his emerald throat and yellow-plush head and his wonderful orangy-gold plumes.
But, then, if the poor hen bird has no glorious plumes of her own, she is always looking at them, always having them spread out on purpose for her to look at, and that must be very pleasant indeed. When the male Great Birds of Paradise wish to show their poor plain hens how handsome they are—just to comfort them and make them not mind being plain themselves—they come to a particular kind of tree in the forest, a tree that has a great many wide-spreading branches at the top, with not so very many leaves upon them, so that it is easy for them to be seen by the hens, who are sitting in other trees near, all ready to watch them. Then they raise up theirwings above their backs, stretch out their emerald necks, bow their yellow heads politely to each other, and shoot up their golden feather-fountains, making each of the long, plumy tufts tremble and vibrate and quiver, as they droop all over them and almost cover them up. The plumes begin from under the wings—that is why they lift their wings up first so that they can shoot straight up and so that the hen birds may see the little stripes of red, which I told you about, and which look like little crimson clouds floating in a little golden sunset. How beautiful they must look! Perhaps there may be a dozen Great Birds of Paradise, all bowing their heads and quivering their plumes, on a dozen branches of the tree, whilst a dozen more will be flying about from one branch to another, so that the tree and the air are full of beauty. The air never had anything to float upon her softer or lovelier than those golden floating plumes, and no tree ever bore blossomsquiteso beautiful as those wonderful golden Paradise-flowers. And both the air and the trees are happy. Both of them whisper, “Oh thank you, thank you, Birds of Paradise.” Of course the Birds of Paradise are happy too. They are happy to have such beauty and to be able to show it to the hens, who sit hidden in the trees and bushes around, andtheyperhaps—the hens for whom it is all done—are happiest of all. Then it is allhappiness—and beauty. Beauty and happiness, those are the two things it is made up of.
There are not so many things that are made up of just those two. Try and think of some. A party, perhaps you may say (only it must be a juvenile one), or a pantomime. Well, of course, there is anenormousamount of beauty and happiness at things of that kind; but is itallbeauty and happiness? Notquiteall, I think. Still I am sure you would think it a very unkind thing if somebody were to break up a party before it were over, or to stop a pantomime before the last act had been performed. You would think that cruel, I am sure. And now if you were looking at those beautiful, happy Birds of Paradise attheirparty or pantomime (Ithinkit is as pretty as a transformation scene), and all at once, when they were just in the middle of it, first one and then another of them were to fall down dead to the ground, till at last half of them lay there underneath the tree and the rest had flown away, would you not thinkthata most cruel and dreadful thing? Where would be the beauty and the happiness now? It would all be gone. Joy would have been changed into sorrow, and beautyalmostinto ugliness—for a dead bird isalmostugly compared to a beautiful, living one. And life would have been changed into death—yes, andsuchlife, the life of happy, lovely birds, ofBirds of Paradise. And I think that if you were there and saw that happen—saw those beautiful birds fall down dead—murdered—all of a sudden—you would be sorry and angry too, and you would say that only a demon could have done so wicked a thing.
You would be right if you were to say so. Itcouldonly be a demon—that same little demon that I told you about who sang a charm to send the Goddess of Pity to sleep and then froze the hearts of the women with his bad, wicked powder. That wretched little demon who wears the magic suit of clothes, which makes him seem all that he ought to be, is always killing the poor Birds of Paradise, just when they are feeling so happy and looking so beautiful. He does not do it himself (any more than the women), for, as he could not be in more than one place at a time, he would not be able to kill a sufficient number to satisfy him, and besides he has a great many other things of the same kind, but more important, to do. So he makes his servants do it. That has always been his plan. He has servants all over the world, and you must not think that they are as bad as himself, for that is not the case at all. They are not bad, but enchanted, so that they do all sorts of bad things without having any idea that they are bad. In fact they generally think that they are the finest things in the world. The demon has all sorts oflittle bottles with different kinds of powders in them, one for every kind of servant that he wants. In his little private workshop they all stand in rows upon a shelf and every one has a different label on it, so that he knows which to take up in a minute. One is labelled “Glory,” and has a powder in it of all sorts of different colours, scarlet, blue, green, white, and a little of it dirty yellow. The man on whom a grain of this powder falls will always be wanting to kill people, and the more he kills the better man he will think himself, and so, too, will other people think him. You may imagine what a lot of work the demon can get out of a servant like that. Another one is labelled “Justice,” and whoever the powder in that falls on will go through life always saying what he doesn't believe, and trying to make other people believe it. Others are labelled “Patriotism,” “Duty,” “Culture,” “Refinement,” “Taste,” “Sensibility,” and so on (all which words your mother will explain to you). The demon chooses them according to the kind of thing he wants done, and all on whom any of the powders inside the bottles fall become his servants in different ways—very grand ways, too, they are often thought—and go on serving him and thinking well of themselves, and being held always in great honour and respect, all their lives.
Now you must not, of course, think that thesebottlesreallycontain the things that are written on their labels. No, indeed, they arefalselabels, for, you see,thesebottles stand in the window where people can see them, the demon does not keep them in his pocket like those other two I told you of. So when people see them they think that they have good powders instead of bad ones inside them, and when the stoppers are taken out the powders fly into their eyes, and they are blinded and never know the difference. Almost every one is blinded, for the demon just stands at the window of his workshop and blows his powders through the world. It is not necessary for him to walk up and down in it sprinkling them about. That would be a long, tedious way of doing things. He just blows them, and he need never be afraid of blowing too much away, for his bottles are magic bottles and always full. Outside his window there is always a great crowd looking at the bottles and admiring them, whilst the demon stands there in his magic suit of clothes, and seems to every one to be just what he ought to be.
They say that somewhere else in the world there is a very beautiful house with a radiant angel inside it, and that there, in vases of crystal and diamond—or something like crystal and diamond, but very much more beautiful—are the real things which the demon only pretends to have in his ugly little bottles. Anyone has only to step in and ask for them, and the angel will open the vase and shed the essence that is inside it into his very heart. But—is it not funny?—hardly anybody ever goes into that house, and the few who do cannot persuade others to follow them. I will tell you why this is. The beautiful house does notlooklike a beautiful house at all to most people, and the angel of light who sits in the open doorway seems to them to be only a shabbily dressed, unfashionable sort of person. Nobody sees his wings, or, if they do, they think wings are vulgar and out of date. It is the demon who is to blame for this. He has had time to blow his magic powders all about the world, and they have blinded people's eyes and made what is really beautiful seem mean and ugly to them—for the demon's powders can blind the eyes as well as freeze the heart. But the little workshop of the demon, which is really as mean and wretched a place as you could find,thatpeople think glorious and beautiful, and his ugly bottles are to them as vases of crystal and diamond. So they crowd about the demon's workshop, thinking it to be the angel's house, and into the angel's house they never go, for they think a demon—or at least an unfashionably dressed person with wings—which are out of date—lives there.
Now, it is one of those bottles with the false labels which the demon takes when he wants one of hisservants in that part of the world to kill the Great Bird of Paradise; for I don't think the men in those countries would much mind what the women said to them. I cannot tell you which bottle it is, but it is none of those that I have told you about. The label upon it is not nearly such a grand one, and the powder is of a much coarser grain, for the man that the demon is going to blow it at is only a poor savage, who is black and nearly naked, and who is not able to serve him in such important ways as are people of a lighter colour and less scantily dressed. He is only fit to do little odd jobs now and again, and his wages are very low in consequence. Even what he gets he is often not allowed to keep, for the demon's upper servants take them away from him, and he is not strong enough to resist. One of his odd jobs is killing the poor Great Birds of Paradise, and now I will tell you how he does it. Only you must not be angry with him, or even with the other people whose servant hethinkshe is, though they are all of themreallythe servants of one master, that wretched little demon in the magic suit of clothes, which makes him seem nice to everybody, although he is so nasty. It isheyou must be angry with, for it is he who does all the mischief, in the way I have told you. He gets people into his power; but, if you do as I tell you, perhaps you will be able to save them from him,and to save the poor, beautiful Birds of Paradise, as well as other beautiful birds, from being killed and killed until they are all dead. Think what a lot of good you will have done, then, to have kept such beauty safe in the world, when it might have been lost out of it for ever. Yes, and you will have done more good than that even, for you will have helped to wake up the Goddess of Pity, and when once she is awake there will be so much for her to do—for, ah! she has been asleep so long.
But, now, listen. I have told you that the man who kills the Great Bird of Paradise is black and naked and a savage. But he is not a negro, although he is rather like one. His hair is something like a negro's hair, but there is much more of it. In fact it is quite a mop, and he is very proud of it. He is a Papuan, and the islands that he lives in are called the Papuan Islands, and are a very long way from Africa, which is where the negroes live. He is a tall, fine-looking man, with a beautiful figure, and he looks very much better naked than he would do if he were dressed. And when I said that he was black, this was notquitetrue, because he is really brown, but it is such a very dark brown that it looks black, and when a man is such a very dark brown that he looks black, then peoplewillcall him a black man, so that is what we will call this Papuan. Now, thisblack man is very quick and active—which is what most savages are—and he can climb trees almost as well as a monkey. When he finds one of those trees where the Great Birds of Paradise have their parties, their “Sacalelies” (that is whathecalls them, it is a word that means a dancing-party), he climbs up into it early in the morning, before it is daylight, and waits for them to come. It does not matter how tall the tree is (and this kind of tree is very tall), or how dark it may be, this naked Papuan savage climbs up it quite easily and without slipping, just like a monkey. He takes up with him some leafy branches of another tree, and with these he makes a little screen to sit under, so that the Birds of Paradise shall not see him. Besides this, he takes his bow and arrows to shoot the poor birds with, for he does not use a gun, which would make too much noise, and, besides, the shot would hurt the beautiful plumage. The arrows do not hurt the plumage as the shot would, because at the end of each one there is a piece of wood, shaped something like an acorn, but as large as a teacup, and the large end of it makes what would be the point of an ordinary arrow. When the poor birds are hit with that great, smooth piece of wood they are killed, because it hits them so hard, but their plumage is not hurt at all, for nothing has gone into the skin, or torn the feathers.
PAPUAN SHOOTING BIRDS OF PARADISE
PAPUAN SHOOTING BIRDS OF PARADISE
PAPUAN SHOOTING BIRDS OF PARADISE
So the naked black man waits behind his screen for the Great Birds of Paradise to come, and as soon as they come and begin to spread their plumes, he shoots first one and then another of them with his great wooden arrows, and they fall down dead underneath the tree. And, do you know, they are so occupied in showing off their beautiful plumes, and so happy and excited as they spread them out and look through them, or fly like little feathery cascades from branch to branch, that it is not till quite a number of them have been killed (for the black savage does not often miss his aim) that the others take fright and fly away. Then the black man climbs down from the tree and picks up the poor, beautiful, dead birds and takes them to another man who is yellow and not quite so naked as he is, who gives him something for them, but not so much as he ought to. The yellow man cheats the black man, and, when he has cheated him, he takes the skins to a white man, who is quite dressed and civilised, and sells them to him, and the white man cheatshima good deal more thanhehas cheated the black man—for, of course, the white man is the cleverest of the three. (You see there are yellow men in those countries—called Malays—as well as black men, and a good many white men go there as well.) Then the white man puts all the beautiful skins that he has boughtfrom the yellow man, as well as a great many others which have been brought to him from all the country and from all the islands round about, into one of those large kinds of boxes called “crates,” that I have told you about, and it is put on board a ship where there are a great many others of the same kind, all full of the skins and feathers of beautiful birds that have been killed. And the ship sails to England, and then up the Thames to London, where the crates are taken out and put into great vans and driven away to the great ugly warehouses to be unpacked and laid on the floor there in a heap, all as I have told you. You know what happens to them then.
And now I will tell you something funny that I daresay you would never have thought of, but which is quite true all the same. That great heap of brightly coloured feathers lying on the floor, to make which hundreds of thousands of the most beautiful birds in the world have been killed, and hundreds of hundreds of thousands of their young ones that would have grown up beautiful, too, have been starved to death in the nest—that great big heap of the loveliest plumage is not so lovely, not nearly so beautiful as one living thrush or one living blackbird or one living swallow or one living robin-redbreast. That is the difference between life and death. A live Bird of Paradise is hundredsof times more beautiful than a live blackbird or thrush or swallow or robin-redbreast, but when it is dead it is not so beautiful as they are. Its feathers are more beautiful, still, of course, but where are thewavingfeathers, thefloatingplumes, the bright eyes, the quick, graceful movements, and the flight—the glorious flight—of a bird. They are gone, they are gone for ever, and, in their place, there is only stiffness and deadness and dustiness. Oh never, never wish to see a dead Bird of Paradise in a hat, when you can see a living thrush or blackbird on the lawn of your garden, or a living swallow flying over it. And even if you can never see a living Bird of Paradise—as I daresay you never will be able to—what then?—what then? You cannot see everything, but have you not got an imagination (your mother, who has got one, will tell you what it is), and is it not better to imagine a beautiful bird flying about in life and loveliness than to see it dead? And the people who have these hats with the Birds of Paradise, or with other beautiful birds, sewn into them, how much do you think they really care about them? Do they ever look at them after they have once bought them? Oh no, they never do. Sometimes they look in the glass with the hat on—yes—but then it is only to see themselvesinthe hat, not the hat.
So now you know what kind of birds the Birds ofParadise are, and how very beautiful they are, and you know how gloriously beautiful the Great Bird of Paradise is, and how it is killed and not allowed to live and be happy, just because it is so beautiful. But now these Great Birds of Paradise live only in some quite small islands and just in one part of one large one, and although there may be a good many of them where they do live, yet if they are always being killed in that way, very soon there will be no more of them left. Then there will be no more Great Birds of Paradise in the world—for they do not live outside those islands—and when they are once gone they can never, never come again.
But do you not think that it would be a dreadful thing if such a bird as this—this beautiful Great Bird of Paradise that I have told you about—were to be killed and killed until it was not in the world any more? Of course you think it would be a dreadful thing, and I am sure that you would prevent it if you could. And youcanprevent it—now—yes,now—and in the easiest way possible. All you have to do—only you must do it directly—is to put your arms round your mother's neck and make her promise never, never to wear a hat with the feathers of a Great Bird of Paradise in it. Of course she will promise, if you ask her in that way, and keep on, and when she once has promised you must not let herforget it. You must remind her of it from time to time (“Remember, mother, youpromised”), and, especially, when you hear her talking about getting a new hat. And when you have made her promise about herself, then you must make her promise never to letyouwear a hat of the sort (of course when you are grown-up and buy your own hats you never will), or your sisters either. And if you have a sister very much older than yourself who buys her own hats, then you can makeherpromise too. Perhapsthatwill be less easy, but she will do it in time if you tease her enough about it and want her to read the book. And then if you can get any other lady to promise, well, the more who do, the better chance there will be for the beautiful Great Bird of Paradise. Only you must make your mother promise first—that is the chief thing—and, to do it, you must tell her all about the wicked little demon, with his powders and his charm to send the Goddess of Pity to sleep. So now go to your mother, go at once, do not wait, or, if your mother is out anywhere, you must only wait till she comes home again.
CHAPTER IVThe Red Bird of ParadiseThen there is another very beautiful Bird of Paradise which is called the Red Bird of Paradise. It is no use trying to find out whether he or the one I have just been telling you about is the most beautiful, because if somebody were to think that one were, somebody else would be sure to have a different opinion. But now I will tell you what this Red Bird of Paradise is like, and then you will know how beautiful to think him. You know those lovely plumes that I told you about, that the Great Bird of Paradise has growing from both his sides, under the wings, and how he lifts up his wings and shoots them right up into the air, so that they fall all over him, like two most beautiful fountains that meet in the air and mingle their waters together. Now the Red Bird of Paradise has those plumes—those feather-fountains—too, and he can shoot them up into the air and let them fall all over him, and look out from amongst them as they bend and wave, and think“How lovely I am!” just the same as the Great Bird of Paradise can. They are not so long, it is true, but then they are very thick, and of a most glorious crimson colour—such a colour as you see, sometimes, in the western sky, when the sun is flushing it, just before he sinks down for the night. People talk about a sky like that and call it a glorious sunset when they see it in Switzerland. One can see it here, too, if one likes, but it is not usual to talk about it or even to look at it, unless one is in Switzerland (your mother will tell you the reason of this). Fancy a bird that looks out of a crimson sunset of feathers—crimson, but with beautiful white tips to them! Crimson and white, that is almost more splendid than orange-gold and mauvy-brown; unless you like orange-gold and mauvy-brown better—it is all a matter of taste.But there is another thing that the Red Bird of Paradise has, which the Great Bird of Paradise has not got at all. He has two little crests of feathers—beautiful metallic green feathers—on his forehead. Just fancy! Not one crest, merely, but two. One talks about a feather in one's cap (which, of course, abirdmay have without its being wrong); but what is a feather in one's cap compared to two crests of feathers on one's forehead? And such crests! And, besides his crimson sunset plumes with their white tips and the two little lovely green crests on his forehead, this bird has twowonderful feathers in his tail; they are not feathers at all, really, that is to say, the soft part of them on each side of the quill, which we call the web, is gone, and there is only the quill left, but it is such a funny sort of quill that you would never think it was one. It is flat and smooth and shiny, and quite a quarter of an inch wide. In fact it looks like a ribbon, a beautiful, black, glossy ribbon, twenty-two inches (which is almost two feet) long.These two wonderful ribbons—I told you there were two—hang down in graceful curves as the bird sits on the branch of a tree, first a curve out and then in and then out again, just at the tips, so that the two together make quite a pretty figure. Of course, when there is any wind at all, they float gracefully about and look very pretty indeed, and when the Red Bird of Paradise flies, his two wonderful ribbons float in the air behind him, just as if he had been into a linen-draper's shop and bought something, and flown out again with it, in his tail. And yet, to make these two pretty ribbons—which are feathers, really, though they do not look like them—the soft part of the feather, which is usually the pretty part, has been taken away, and only the quill, which is usually almost ugly by comparison, has been left. And yet they are so handsome. That is because Dame Nature is such a wonderful workwoman. She canmake almost anything she tries to, out of any kind of material.Now, I must tell you that the Great Bird of Paradise has two funny feathers like this inhistail too—feathers, I mean, without webs to them—only his ones have just a little web at the beginning and, again, at the very tips; all the part in between has none at all. These funny feathers of the Great Bird of Paradise are even longer than those of the red one, for they are from twenty-four to thirty-four inches long, and thirty-four inches, you know, is almost three feet. But then they are thin, not broad like ribbons, and the plumes of the Great Bird of Paradise are so long that they are a good deal hidden by them, and, sometimes, hardly noticed amongst such a lot of finery. I think that must be why, when I was describing the Great Bird of Paradise to you, I forgot all about them, which, of course, I ought not to have done. But we all of us make mistakes sometimes, people who write books just as much as people who only read them, although, of course, people whowritebooksoughtto be more careful.In fact, a great many of the Birds of Paradise have these funny feathers, and some of them have more than two. If you look for page 77 you will see a picture of the King Bird of Paradise, who has two beauties. He is not one of the birds that I talkabout in this book—there was no room for him—but that does not matter. He sent me his picture, and it will show you what these “funny feathers” are like. Thereisa Bird of Paradise that has twelve of them, but now I must finish talking about the Red Bird of Paradise. I have told you about the glorious crimson plumes that he has on his sides, and the two funny feathers, like ribbons, in his tail, and the double crest of beautiful emerald-green feathers on his forehead, but, of course, there are other parts of him besides these, and I must tell you what they are like too. His head and his back and his shoulders are yellow, as they are in the Great Bird of Paradise, but it is a deeper and richer yellow, not the light, straw-coloured yellow whichhehas and which is very pretty too (I am sure we should never agree as to which is the prettier of these two birds). His throat, too, is of a deep metallic green colour—you know what metallic means now—but those lovely green feathers go farther up, in fact right over the front part of the head—which is his forehead—so as to make those two sweet little crests which he has, and which help to make him such a very handsome bird. The rest of his wings and body, and his tail, except the two ribbons in it, are brown—a nice, handsome, rich, coffee-brown—his legs are blue, and his beak is a finegamboge-yellow. Ah,thereis a beautiful bird indeed! What would you say if you were to see a bird that was yellow and green with crimson-sunset plumes, and with two long glossy ribbons in his tail, and two beautiful crests on his forehead, with blue legs and a gamboge bill, flying from tree to tree in your garden?Ah, yes, if you were to see him like that he would be more beautiful than any bird that has ever been in your garden or that has ever flown about in the woods or fields all over England—for he would be alive then—alive and happy. But if you were to see him dead he would not be so beautiful as any of the birds in your garden—no, not even as the sparrows (which is saying a good deal), for the beauty of life would be gone out of him, and that is the greatest beauty of all. And even if he were in a cage—unless it were averylarge one with a great many trees in it—he would hardly look as beautiful as a lark does when he sails and sings in the sky.So, however beautiful this bird is, you must only want to see him flying about in the forests or gardens of his native land, if ever you go there. If you do not go there, then you must not mind, but you must try to imagine him, which is almost as good as seeing him, if you do it properly. But you must never want to see him in a cage that is smaller than a large garden with trees in it, or dead in a glass case or ahat. It is better that beautiful birds should be alive and you not see them, than that they should be killed or made miserable for you to look at.Now you may be sure that if the poor Great Bird of Paradise is killed because he is so beautiful, so is the poor Red Bird of Paradise becauseheis. It is dreadful tobesure of such a thing, and it is all because of the wicked little demon, and the Goddess of Pity being asleep. When the wicked little demon has been driven away, and the Goddess of Pity has been woken up—and it is you who are going to wake her—then you may be sure that no beautiful birds will be killed, and that the more beautiful they are the less people will ever think of killing them. But that time is not come yet. It will not come till you have read this book right through and finished it.Now you remember that the Great Bird of Paradise is shot with arrows by a naked black man with frizzly hair like a mop—a man that we call a savage, though, really, he is not nearly so savage as some men who wear clothes all over them. You see, where he lives it is very warm, so that he does not want clothes, and he looks very much better without them, for his black, smooth skin is very handsome indeed, and so is his frizzly hair. If you saw him you would think him a very nice, amiable person, for he is always laughing and springing about, and his white teeth doflash so and his eyes beam, and he looks very pleasant indeed. I think you would quite like him, so you must not despise him because he is not civilised like us; never despise people because they have a different coloured skin to your own and wear no clothes and are called savages. Perhaps we may be better than people like that, but remember that the angels are much better compared to us, than we are, compared to such people. But do you think the angelsdespiseus? Oh no, youcouldnot think that, soyoumust not despise the savages. Never despise any one, that is the best thing. Instead of doing that, try to find out what is good about them—there is sure to be something, and, often, it is something whichtheyhave andwehave not.Never despise.Well, it is this same naked, frizzly-haired Papuan who kills the beautiful Red Bird of Paradise as well as the Great one, but he does not do it with bows and arrows, but in quite another way, which I will tell you about.The Birds of Paradise are all fond of fruit; they like insects and things of that sort too, but fruit they areveryfond of. They like a nice ripe fig, and there are so many fig-trees in that country, both growing wild and in the gardens too, that when the figs are ripe they do not trouble to finish one before they begin another, but fly about from tree to tree, makinga bite here and another there, out of just the ripest and nicest. That is a nice, delicate way of eating figs,Ithink, just to take a little and leave the rest. We are so greedy that we always eat the whole fig, but thenweare not Birds of Paradise.But now there is one particular fruit which the Red Bird of Paradise likes better than any other, much better, even, than a ripe fig. It is a fruit which I do not know the name of, in fact I am not quite sure that it has a name, except in some language which we would neither of us understand. But you know what an arum lily is, and in those forests that I told you of there is a kind of arum lily which climbs up trees, for there are climbing lilies there as well as climbing palm-trees. This climbing arum lily has a red fruit, and it is this red fruit which the Red Bird of Paradise thinks so exceedingly nice. It will go anywhere to get that fruit, and the naked black man with frizzly hair knows that it will; so he makes a trap for it with the very fruit that it is so fond of.But besides the fruit, two other things are necessary for making this trap; one of them is a forked stick like the handle of a catapult, and the other is some string. The Papuan soon cuts the stick, either with a knife that he has bought of a white man, or with a sharp piece of stone or flint, and the string he makes from some creeper, or by rolling the innerbark of a tree between his hands. When he has done this he takes the fruit and ties it to the forked stick, then he climbs up a tree that he knows the Red Birds of Paradise come to perch on, and ties the stick, with the fruit fastened to it, to one of the branches. To do this he takes a very long piece of string, one end of which hangs right down to the ground, and he ties it so cleverly that he has only to pull the string for the stick, with the fruit on it, to come away from the branch, just as a sash that is tied in a bow will come undone when you pull one of the ends. Then the black Papuan climbs down from the tree, again, and sits underneath it with the end of the long string in his hand, all ready to pull it when the right time comes.Sometimes it will not be long before a Red Bird of Paradise comes to the tree, sometimes the Papuan will have to sit there the whole day or even for two or three days, for he is very patient and will not go away till he has done what he came to do. All savages are like that; they are ever so much more patient than civilised people who wear clothes. But whenever the poor Red Bird of Paradise does come, he is sure to see the fruit, and then he is sure to fly to it, to eat it, andthenhe is sure to get caught in the string. For the string has a noose in it which gets round his legs, and the frizzly-haired man underneath, who iswatching the Bird of Paradise all the time, just pulls the cord, and down he comes as well as the stick. You see he cannot fly very well with the stick fastened to him, and, however much he tries to, it is no use, for the black man has only to keep pulling the string.That is how the poor Red Bird of Paradise is caught, and as soon as he has caught him the black frizzly-haired man kills him and skins him—I need hardly tell you that he does that, for you know in whose service he is. Then the black man takes the skin to a yellow man, who buys it of him and cheats him a little, and the yellow man takes it to a white man who buys it ofhimand cheatshimmore, and it all happens just the same as it did with the Great Bird of Paradise, until the skin is lying on the floor of the warehouse, with all those other beautiful skins of poor beautiful birds—all killed to be put into the hats of women whose hearts the wicked little demon has frozen. Is it not shocking? But you know how to stop it. You have only to make your mother promise—yes,promise—neverto wear a hat that has the skin or any of the feathers of a Red Bird of Paradise in it. Make her promise this before reading the next chapter.
Then there is another very beautiful Bird of Paradise which is called the Red Bird of Paradise. It is no use trying to find out whether he or the one I have just been telling you about is the most beautiful, because if somebody were to think that one were, somebody else would be sure to have a different opinion. But now I will tell you what this Red Bird of Paradise is like, and then you will know how beautiful to think him. You know those lovely plumes that I told you about, that the Great Bird of Paradise has growing from both his sides, under the wings, and how he lifts up his wings and shoots them right up into the air, so that they fall all over him, like two most beautiful fountains that meet in the air and mingle their waters together. Now the Red Bird of Paradise has those plumes—those feather-fountains—too, and he can shoot them up into the air and let them fall all over him, and look out from amongst them as they bend and wave, and think“How lovely I am!” just the same as the Great Bird of Paradise can. They are not so long, it is true, but then they are very thick, and of a most glorious crimson colour—such a colour as you see, sometimes, in the western sky, when the sun is flushing it, just before he sinks down for the night. People talk about a sky like that and call it a glorious sunset when they see it in Switzerland. One can see it here, too, if one likes, but it is not usual to talk about it or even to look at it, unless one is in Switzerland (your mother will tell you the reason of this). Fancy a bird that looks out of a crimson sunset of feathers—crimson, but with beautiful white tips to them! Crimson and white, that is almost more splendid than orange-gold and mauvy-brown; unless you like orange-gold and mauvy-brown better—it is all a matter of taste.
But there is another thing that the Red Bird of Paradise has, which the Great Bird of Paradise has not got at all. He has two little crests of feathers—beautiful metallic green feathers—on his forehead. Just fancy! Not one crest, merely, but two. One talks about a feather in one's cap (which, of course, abirdmay have without its being wrong); but what is a feather in one's cap compared to two crests of feathers on one's forehead? And such crests! And, besides his crimson sunset plumes with their white tips and the two little lovely green crests on his forehead, this bird has twowonderful feathers in his tail; they are not feathers at all, really, that is to say, the soft part of them on each side of the quill, which we call the web, is gone, and there is only the quill left, but it is such a funny sort of quill that you would never think it was one. It is flat and smooth and shiny, and quite a quarter of an inch wide. In fact it looks like a ribbon, a beautiful, black, glossy ribbon, twenty-two inches (which is almost two feet) long.
These two wonderful ribbons—I told you there were two—hang down in graceful curves as the bird sits on the branch of a tree, first a curve out and then in and then out again, just at the tips, so that the two together make quite a pretty figure. Of course, when there is any wind at all, they float gracefully about and look very pretty indeed, and when the Red Bird of Paradise flies, his two wonderful ribbons float in the air behind him, just as if he had been into a linen-draper's shop and bought something, and flown out again with it, in his tail. And yet, to make these two pretty ribbons—which are feathers, really, though they do not look like them—the soft part of the feather, which is usually the pretty part, has been taken away, and only the quill, which is usually almost ugly by comparison, has been left. And yet they are so handsome. That is because Dame Nature is such a wonderful workwoman. She canmake almost anything she tries to, out of any kind of material.
Now, I must tell you that the Great Bird of Paradise has two funny feathers like this inhistail too—feathers, I mean, without webs to them—only his ones have just a little web at the beginning and, again, at the very tips; all the part in between has none at all. These funny feathers of the Great Bird of Paradise are even longer than those of the red one, for they are from twenty-four to thirty-four inches long, and thirty-four inches, you know, is almost three feet. But then they are thin, not broad like ribbons, and the plumes of the Great Bird of Paradise are so long that they are a good deal hidden by them, and, sometimes, hardly noticed amongst such a lot of finery. I think that must be why, when I was describing the Great Bird of Paradise to you, I forgot all about them, which, of course, I ought not to have done. But we all of us make mistakes sometimes, people who write books just as much as people who only read them, although, of course, people whowritebooksoughtto be more careful.
In fact, a great many of the Birds of Paradise have these funny feathers, and some of them have more than two. If you look for page 77 you will see a picture of the King Bird of Paradise, who has two beauties. He is not one of the birds that I talkabout in this book—there was no room for him—but that does not matter. He sent me his picture, and it will show you what these “funny feathers” are like. Thereisa Bird of Paradise that has twelve of them, but now I must finish talking about the Red Bird of Paradise. I have told you about the glorious crimson plumes that he has on his sides, and the two funny feathers, like ribbons, in his tail, and the double crest of beautiful emerald-green feathers on his forehead, but, of course, there are other parts of him besides these, and I must tell you what they are like too. His head and his back and his shoulders are yellow, as they are in the Great Bird of Paradise, but it is a deeper and richer yellow, not the light, straw-coloured yellow whichhehas and which is very pretty too (I am sure we should never agree as to which is the prettier of these two birds). His throat, too, is of a deep metallic green colour—you know what metallic means now—but those lovely green feathers go farther up, in fact right over the front part of the head—which is his forehead—so as to make those two sweet little crests which he has, and which help to make him such a very handsome bird. The rest of his wings and body, and his tail, except the two ribbons in it, are brown—a nice, handsome, rich, coffee-brown—his legs are blue, and his beak is a finegamboge-yellow. Ah,thereis a beautiful bird indeed! What would you say if you were to see a bird that was yellow and green with crimson-sunset plumes, and with two long glossy ribbons in his tail, and two beautiful crests on his forehead, with blue legs and a gamboge bill, flying from tree to tree in your garden?
Ah, yes, if you were to see him like that he would be more beautiful than any bird that has ever been in your garden or that has ever flown about in the woods or fields all over England—for he would be alive then—alive and happy. But if you were to see him dead he would not be so beautiful as any of the birds in your garden—no, not even as the sparrows (which is saying a good deal), for the beauty of life would be gone out of him, and that is the greatest beauty of all. And even if he were in a cage—unless it were averylarge one with a great many trees in it—he would hardly look as beautiful as a lark does when he sails and sings in the sky.
So, however beautiful this bird is, you must only want to see him flying about in the forests or gardens of his native land, if ever you go there. If you do not go there, then you must not mind, but you must try to imagine him, which is almost as good as seeing him, if you do it properly. But you must never want to see him in a cage that is smaller than a large garden with trees in it, or dead in a glass case or ahat. It is better that beautiful birds should be alive and you not see them, than that they should be killed or made miserable for you to look at.
Now you may be sure that if the poor Great Bird of Paradise is killed because he is so beautiful, so is the poor Red Bird of Paradise becauseheis. It is dreadful tobesure of such a thing, and it is all because of the wicked little demon, and the Goddess of Pity being asleep. When the wicked little demon has been driven away, and the Goddess of Pity has been woken up—and it is you who are going to wake her—then you may be sure that no beautiful birds will be killed, and that the more beautiful they are the less people will ever think of killing them. But that time is not come yet. It will not come till you have read this book right through and finished it.
Now you remember that the Great Bird of Paradise is shot with arrows by a naked black man with frizzly hair like a mop—a man that we call a savage, though, really, he is not nearly so savage as some men who wear clothes all over them. You see, where he lives it is very warm, so that he does not want clothes, and he looks very much better without them, for his black, smooth skin is very handsome indeed, and so is his frizzly hair. If you saw him you would think him a very nice, amiable person, for he is always laughing and springing about, and his white teeth doflash so and his eyes beam, and he looks very pleasant indeed. I think you would quite like him, so you must not despise him because he is not civilised like us; never despise people because they have a different coloured skin to your own and wear no clothes and are called savages. Perhaps we may be better than people like that, but remember that the angels are much better compared to us, than we are, compared to such people. But do you think the angelsdespiseus? Oh no, youcouldnot think that, soyoumust not despise the savages. Never despise any one, that is the best thing. Instead of doing that, try to find out what is good about them—there is sure to be something, and, often, it is something whichtheyhave andwehave not.Never despise.
Well, it is this same naked, frizzly-haired Papuan who kills the beautiful Red Bird of Paradise as well as the Great one, but he does not do it with bows and arrows, but in quite another way, which I will tell you about.
The Birds of Paradise are all fond of fruit; they like insects and things of that sort too, but fruit they areveryfond of. They like a nice ripe fig, and there are so many fig-trees in that country, both growing wild and in the gardens too, that when the figs are ripe they do not trouble to finish one before they begin another, but fly about from tree to tree, makinga bite here and another there, out of just the ripest and nicest. That is a nice, delicate way of eating figs,Ithink, just to take a little and leave the rest. We are so greedy that we always eat the whole fig, but thenweare not Birds of Paradise.
But now there is one particular fruit which the Red Bird of Paradise likes better than any other, much better, even, than a ripe fig. It is a fruit which I do not know the name of, in fact I am not quite sure that it has a name, except in some language which we would neither of us understand. But you know what an arum lily is, and in those forests that I told you of there is a kind of arum lily which climbs up trees, for there are climbing lilies there as well as climbing palm-trees. This climbing arum lily has a red fruit, and it is this red fruit which the Red Bird of Paradise thinks so exceedingly nice. It will go anywhere to get that fruit, and the naked black man with frizzly hair knows that it will; so he makes a trap for it with the very fruit that it is so fond of.
But besides the fruit, two other things are necessary for making this trap; one of them is a forked stick like the handle of a catapult, and the other is some string. The Papuan soon cuts the stick, either with a knife that he has bought of a white man, or with a sharp piece of stone or flint, and the string he makes from some creeper, or by rolling the innerbark of a tree between his hands. When he has done this he takes the fruit and ties it to the forked stick, then he climbs up a tree that he knows the Red Birds of Paradise come to perch on, and ties the stick, with the fruit fastened to it, to one of the branches. To do this he takes a very long piece of string, one end of which hangs right down to the ground, and he ties it so cleverly that he has only to pull the string for the stick, with the fruit on it, to come away from the branch, just as a sash that is tied in a bow will come undone when you pull one of the ends. Then the black Papuan climbs down from the tree, again, and sits underneath it with the end of the long string in his hand, all ready to pull it when the right time comes.
Sometimes it will not be long before a Red Bird of Paradise comes to the tree, sometimes the Papuan will have to sit there the whole day or even for two or three days, for he is very patient and will not go away till he has done what he came to do. All savages are like that; they are ever so much more patient than civilised people who wear clothes. But whenever the poor Red Bird of Paradise does come, he is sure to see the fruit, and then he is sure to fly to it, to eat it, andthenhe is sure to get caught in the string. For the string has a noose in it which gets round his legs, and the frizzly-haired man underneath, who iswatching the Bird of Paradise all the time, just pulls the cord, and down he comes as well as the stick. You see he cannot fly very well with the stick fastened to him, and, however much he tries to, it is no use, for the black man has only to keep pulling the string.
That is how the poor Red Bird of Paradise is caught, and as soon as he has caught him the black frizzly-haired man kills him and skins him—I need hardly tell you that he does that, for you know in whose service he is. Then the black man takes the skin to a yellow man, who buys it of him and cheats him a little, and the yellow man takes it to a white man who buys it ofhimand cheatshimmore, and it all happens just the same as it did with the Great Bird of Paradise, until the skin is lying on the floor of the warehouse, with all those other beautiful skins of poor beautiful birds—all killed to be put into the hats of women whose hearts the wicked little demon has frozen. Is it not shocking? But you know how to stop it. You have only to make your mother promise—yes,promise—neverto wear a hat that has the skin or any of the feathers of a Red Bird of Paradise in it. Make her promise this before reading the next chapter.
CHAPTER VThe Lesser, Black, Blue, and Golden Birds of ParadiseNow I have told you about two very beautiful Birds of Paradise, and in this chapter I shall tell you about some others; at least I shall try to tell you what they are like, because not so very much is known about their habits, what they do, or how they live. That is because they live in such wild parts of the world, in such deep, dense forests, and on such high, steep hills. Not many travellers have been into these out-of-the-way places, and those that have gone there, instead of trying to watch them and find out all about them—which would have been so interesting—have shot at them with their guns whenever they have seen them, and have either killed them or driven them away. It is not by killing birds or by driving them away that you can find out much about their habits.It would be much better if these travellers were to take a good pair of glasses and were to sit downin the forests or on the hills and watch the birds through the glasses whenever they saw them; for with a good pair of glasses one can watch birds even when they do not come very near to one. Then we should know something about them, and the more we know about a bird or any other living creature the more interesting it becomes for us. One cannot beveryinterested in something that one knows nothing about, but as one begins to know even a little about it, it begins to get interesting directly. But then, why is it that the travellers who go out to these countries take guns with them instead of glasses, and shoot the birds—as well as other animals—instead of watching them? That is a question which I cannot answer. All I can tell you is that it is as I say, and I am afraid the wicked little demon has something to do with it. But now we must get on, and first we come to the Lesser Bird of Paradise.The Lesser Bird of Paradise is something like the Great Bird of Paradise, only it is not quite so handsome and not nearly so big—which, of course, is what you would expect from its name. Where the Great Bird of Paradise is brown the lesser one is brown too, but it is a lighter brown, not such a nice, rich, coffee-coloured one as the other, and, on the breast, this brown colour does not change into ablackish-violet or a browny-purple as you know it does in the Great Bird of Paradise—it is brown there just the same. On the back, though, the Lesser Bird of Paradise is all yellow, so that here, if you remember, it has the advantage; but then the long plumes on each side under the wings are notsolong as in the Great Bird of Paradise, and they have only just a tinge of orange in them, instead of being of the beautiful golden-orange colour thathisones are. The tips of them, too, are white instead of mauvy-brown, and the two funny feathers in the tail are much shorter than the Great Bird of Paradise's funny feathers.THE LESSER BIRD OF PARADISEBut although the Lesser Bird of Paradise is not such a beautiful bird as the Great Bird of Paradise is, still it is a very beautiful bird indeed—what Bird of Paradise is not?—and as it is commoner than the other Birds of Paradise and easier to get, it is the one that is most often killed and put into the hats that the women with the frozen hearts wear; which is why I want you to jump up and throw your arms round your mother's neck and make her promise never, never to wear a hat that has a Lesser Bird of Paradise in it.And now, what would you say to a Black Bird of Paradise? For there is one—yes, and such a splendid bird. “Oh, but,” you will say,“if he is black he cannot be soverybeautiful, for he cannot be of all sorts of beautiful colours like the other ones.” But have you not heard of a black diamond? That is black, butinits blackness all sorts of wonderful colours are lying asleep, and sometimes they wake up and flash out of it, as the sun's rays do out of a dark, stormy cloud, and then they go back into it again and are lost, as the sun's rays are lost when the sun goes in. Yes, they are asleep, those colours, and whilst they are asleep the diamond is really black, but when they wake up and begin to gleam and flash, and sparkle, and shoot about, then it is not ablackdiamond any more, although we may call it so.And there may be a dark, deep cavern, so dark and so deep that you would be quite afraid to go into it, especially at night. But some gipsies, who were not afraid, have gone into it and have lighted a fire, and the flames leap up and glimmer through the smoke, and then sink for a moment and shoot up again, and fall on the sides and roof of the cavern, and make a deep glow in its mouth, and flicker on the leaves of the trees outside, and send out long tongues of flame that make a red light in the air and lick the darkness off everything that they touch. That cavernwasdark and black before the fire was lighted in it, and when the fire goes outit will be dark and black again, but it is not dark and black just now, whilst the red fire is burning.Or it may be a dark night, very dark and stormy, so dark that it is difficult for people who are out in it to find their way, whilst people who only look out of the window, say that it is a pitch-dark night. But now the rain is beginning to fall, and it comes down faster and faster, and there is a muttering in the dull sky, and, all at once, a flash of lightning leaps out of the darkness, cutting it as though with a red, jagged knife, and for an instant it is day, and you see the leaves on the trees, and the rain-drops falling through the air, and the fields with haystacks standing in them, or rivers winding through them, and the distant hills, and the line where the earth meets the heavens. Then, all in a moment—almost before you can say “Oh,” and quite before the great clap of thunder that follows the lightning-flash—it is night—deep, dark, black night—again. The night in which there is a storm like that is a dark night, but it is not dark when the lightning is leaping and flashing.It is the same with this Black Bird of Paradise. At first when you look at him, all his plumage is of a deep, dark, velvety black, a lovely black, a beautiful, smooth, glossy black, a black that seems almost to gleam and to sparkle as if it were jewellery—black velvet jewellery you may call it, very handsome, very beautiful indeed. Still it is black, but all at once all the colours that have lain asleep in it—blues and greens, and bluey-greens and greeny-blues, and purples and indigos, and wonderful bronzy reflections—wake up together, and flash out of it like the sparkles out of the diamond, like the tongues of fire out of the black cavern, like the lightning out of the dark night. There they all are, flashing and leaping about, meeting and mingling, then shooting apart, playing little games with each other, till all at once they fall asleep again, and there is only the smooth, glossy black, the deep, jetty black, the shining, gleaming, satiny-velvety black, the black velvet, black satin jewellery. That is what a Black Bird of Paradise is like, like a black diamond, like a cavern with a fire lighted in it, like a dark night with flashes of lightning.But now I will tell you a little more about his appearance, for this that I have told you is only just to give you an idea of how that wonderful material, from which Dame Nature with her scissors cuts out all her children (for all things that are alive are the children of Dame Nature), can be black, and yet have all sorts of colours in it at the same time.First, you must know—so as not to make anymistake—that this “Black Bird of Paradise” has another name—indeed he has two other names, but one of them is in Latin, so we won't bother about that. There are some birds that have no English names, and when we come to them we will have to call them by their Latin ones—but as long as a bird has an English name we will never trouble our heads about what its Latin name may be, not we, any more than the bird itself does, and no bird that has an English name ever thinks about what its name is in Latin—in fact I really do not believe that it knows. An English name is enough foranybird, if only it is sofortunateas to have one. Now this bird is so fortunate as to have two English names—the Black Bird of Paradise, that you know about—which is what the English people who live in its own country call it—and the Superb Bird of Paradise, which is what naturalists at home in England call it. TheSuperbBird of Paradise! Just fancy having a name like that! Supposing a gentleman—some friend of your father and mother, who calls sometimes at the house—were to be called the superb Mr. Jones or the superb Mr. Robinson! Only he would have to be very much more handsome than he is at all likely to be, before he would deserve a name likethat.Well, the two most wonderful things about theSuperb or Black Bird of Paradise—after his marvellous black plumage, that has all sorts of colours lying asleep in it—are two wonderful ornaments that he has, one on his head and one on his breast. The one on his head is the most wonderful. It is a sort of crest—at least I think that is the best name for it. Some people, I know, call it a shield, but then that is what they call the other wonderful thing on the breast too; so, if they call that a shield, I think they should call this a helmet, for it is a helmet, and not a shield, that soldiers wear on the head.Ishall call it a crest, but it is one of the most extraordinary crests that any bird ever had. It is like a pair of black velvet lappets, so long that they go all down the back and reach half-an-inch beyond the tips of the wings. But at the back of the head, where this crest begins, the two lappets meet, and they are joined together for a little way before they begin to go apart. I tell you what will give you an idea of the shape of this crest. Have you ever seen a pair of trousers that have been washed, and are hanging out on a clothes-line to dry, with the legs very wide apart, so wide they look as if they had been stretched?—I don't know if they really have. Of course you have seen such a thing. Well, that will give you an idea—mind, that isallI can say—of what this wonderful crestthat is worn by the Black Bird of Paradise is like. The legs of the trousers are the two lappets, from where they are divided from each other, and, farther up, they join and become all one, just as the legs of a pair of trousersdo. Only, of course, I need hardly tell you that a crest of beautiful, black, velvety feathers, glossed with bronze and purple, has a far moreelegantappearance than a pair of trousers hanging out to dry, though it may have just alittlethe same shape.KING BIRD OF PARADISENow I think you will agree with me that this crest is a wonderful thing, even when it is only lying down along the neck and body of the bird. But what would you say when you saw the Black Bird of Paradise lift it right up above its head?—which is what he does, you may be sure, when he wants to show off before the hen bird, who has no crest onherhead nor shield on her breast, and whose black feathers, I am afraid, are not nearly so glossy and velvety, and have no colours lying asleep in them and ready to wake up all of a sudden. Ah, you would think the Black Bird of Paradise a wonderful, wonderful bird if you were to see him bowing politely to his hen and lifting up his wonderful, wonderful crest to her.But I told you this bird had a shield too, and when he lifts up his crest over his head, he shoots out hisshield in front of his breast, at the same time, and this shield is something of the same shape as the crest or helmet, only smaller, and always of a lovely bluey-green colour, with a glossy sheen upon it that is just like that upon satin. Yes,always, for the colours that go to sleep in the other parts of the Black Bird of Paradise's plumage, keep wide awake in the shield on its breast, or, if you ever do catch them napping, it is only just for a single instant, and then out they flash again, wider awake than ever. So now, if you were to say—as I am sure you would say—that the Black Bird of Paradise was a wonderful, wonderful bird, even if you were to see him with only his crest lifted up, what, ah,whatwould you say if you were to see him with his crest lifted up and his shield shot out at the same time? Why, I think that then you could not say less than that he was a wonderful, wonderful,wonderfulbird—three wonderfuls instead of only two. And indeed you would be right.Yes, he is a wonder, is the Black Bird of Paradise, though I must tell you that he has not any of those long, silky feathers that hang down like cascades and shoot up like fountains, from the sides of those other Birds of Paradise I have been telling you about. And he has no long “funny feathers” in his tail either. You see he cannot have everything, and hiscrest and shield are instead of those. They are not quite so beautiful, perhaps, but I think they are still more wonderful. Even when his crest—his helmet—is laid down and his shield is not stuck out, the Black Bird of Paradise is a wonder, but when he raises the one up and shoots the other out, both at the same time, and says to the hen, “Look at me!” and all the colours that have been asleep in the helmet, or awake in the shield, gleam and flash and sparkle together, ah,thenhe is a wonder of wonders.Then, do you think he is a bird that ought to be killed and killed and killed, only to have those beautiful, bronzy-black crests, and satiny-green, gleaming shields of his set in hats where they soon get dull and dusty, and where he can never raise them up or shoot them out or pay proper attention to them—because he is dead, dead, dead? Is he to be killed and killed till he is gone for ever, and there is not one more beautiful Black Bird of Paradise in the whole world? Oh no, no, no; it ought not to be so—it must not, itshallnot—because you will prevent it—yes, you. You will turn to your mother now, this minute, if she is there, if she is reading this to you, or, if not, you will run to her—oh, so quickly, so quickly—and ask her, beg her—keep on asking and asking, begging and begging her to promise—till shehaspromised—never,neverto buy a hat that has a beautiful Black Bird of Paradise in it.Now, as I have said that the Black Bird of Paradise is such a very wonderful bird—as I have even called him a “wonder of wonders”—perhaps you will think that there is no other Bird of Paradise quite so wonderful as he is. Well, I do not wonder at your thinking so; and, do you know, whilst I was describing him to you and telling you how wonderful he was, I thought so too. But I had forgotten the Blue Bird of Paradise.The Blue Bird of Paradise is quite as wonderful as the Black one. Perhaps—but mind I only say perhaps—he is even a little more wonderful. To begin with, blue is a very uncommon colour for a Bird of Paradise to be of. None of the Birds of Paradise that I have told you about have feathers that are really blue. There are blue lights, I know, in some of their feathers, especially on the head, but still they are not quite blue. You could hardly call them blue feathers, for there is a green light or a purple light as well as a blue light in them, which makes them bluey-green or greeny purple, or, at any rate, green or purpleandblue, not just blue by itself. And then, as you know, sometimes all those lights go to sleep and then the feathers are black. I do not think there is any Bird of Paradise except the BlueBird of Paradise whose feathers are really and truly blue, and I am quite sure that there is no other one—at least that we know of—which has so much blue about it, that you would think of it as a blue bird, or that has blue feather-fountains—those wonderful long silky plumes that grow out of each side under the wings.That is what is most wonderful in the Blue Bird of Paradise. There is no other Bird of Paradise that can sit under a blue fountain or look out of a blue sunset. But the plumes of the Blue Bird of Paradise are not so long as those of the Great or the Lesser Bird of Paradise, and when he spreads them out they go more on each side of him than up over his head, and, for this reason, I think, he looks more as if he was looking out of a sunset than sitting under a fountain. You have seen a beautiful sunset often; there will be blue in it somewhere, cool, lovely lakes or bays, or long, stretching inlets, of the loveliest, purest, most delicate blue. But the clouds that float in those bays and lakes like islands, or that shut them in and make their shores, like great burning continents, are not blue, but rosy red or fiery crimson or molten gold or golden-crimson flame. That, at least, is what the brightest ones are like, those that are gathered nearest round the sun. Now, if they could keep all their brightness and glowingness andbe blue instead of rose or crimson or gold, then it would be a blue sunset; and that is what the sunset is like that the Blue Bird of Paradise looks out of, when he spreads out his plumes, just as the sunset that the Red Bird of Paradise looks out of, whenhespreads outhisplumes, is like a red sunset—only of feathers, of course. One is a blue feather-sunset, and the other a red feather-sunset.And how soft those feathers are, those wonderful, blue sunset-feathers of the wonderful Blue Bird of Paradise. Oh, I cannot tell you how softly they droop down over his breast, or how softly—howverysoftly—each feather touches the other one, upon it. How softly, I wonder—for I know you will want me to say. As softly as a snowflake falls upon snow? Oh, more softly than that. As softly as two gossamers are blown together in the air? Still more softly, even. As softly, then, as your mother kisses you when you are asleep, and she does not wish to wake you? Yes, I think it is as softly, or almost as softly, as that. Those are two of the very softest kisses—when your mother kisses you when you are asleep, so as not to wake you, and when the soft blue feathers of the plumes on each side of a Blue Bird of Paradise, meet and kiss each other on its breast.Now that is all I am going to tell you about the front part of the Blue Bird of Paradise—for thosewonderful blue feathers that grow on each side become the front part of him when he spreads them out. You see, they open out like two fans, with the handles turned towards each other, and meet together on the breast and above the head, so as to make one large fan or screen. Of course there is something behind this screen, and through it peeps the head of the bird, which is very pretty too. But you don't look at his head, you don't seem to see it. All you see or look at are those beautiful, beautiful plumes, that lovely screen, that wonderful soft blue feather-sunset.As for the back part of this wonderful Blue Bird of Paradise, well, that is blue too, most of it—a handsome blue, a lovely blue, a gleaming, shining, glossy, satiny blue that looks darker when you see it from one side, and lighter when you see it from another, and which gleams and glints and is very resplendent (which is a word your mother will explain to you) however you look at it. Oh, a glorious blue, a magnificent blue, but notsucha blue as the blue of those soft lovely feathers that spread out on each side and curl over and meet and kiss each other so softly, on the breast. And the head and neck of the Blue Bird of Paradise (for sometimes he puts them behind the screen, and then they are the back part of him) are of a soft velvet brownthat, as you look at it, becomes a soft velvet-claret-magenta colour (which your mother knows all about and will explain to you), and in his tail there are two long “funny feathers” that hang down from the bough he is sitting on, and—andnowyou must try to imagine him.Whenyou have imagined him—or before you have, if you are not able to—you must make your mother promise—now what? You know, of course. You must make her promiseneverto wear a hat with a Blue Bird of Paradise's feathers in it.Now we come to the Golden or Six-shafted Bird of Paradise, who lives just in one part of New Guinea—that long part at the north that goes out into the sea, and which we call a peninsula; you have only to look at the map and you will see it. Now I think of it, the Superb or Black Bird of Paradise—or shall we say the Superb Black Bird of Paradise?—lives there too, so I daresay they sometimes see each other. Perhaps they call on each other, for, you see, they are both of them distinguished. One is superb and the other golden, and when two people are like that they do not mind calling upon one another. You see, neither of them can be hurt by it then. Asuperbperson may call upon even agoldenperson, and yet feel quite well after it, and it will not do agoldenperson any harm at all to call upon asuperbperson. So, ifbirds are like people, I feel sure that sometimes the Golden and the Superb Bird of Paradise call upon each other.Now you will want to know why this Bird of Paradise is called both the Golden and the Six-shafted Bird of Paradise. Well, he is called the Golden Bird of Paradise because he has lovely golden feathers on his throat and breast, and he is called the Six-shafted Bird of Paradise because six little arrows—for that is what they look like—seem to have been shot into his head, three on each side—arrows, you know, are sometimes called shafts. These little shafts or arrows are six inches long—almost as long as the bird itself—and bend right back over his body, as far as to the tail. Of course each of them is really a feather—an arrow that is all feather—but it is a “funny feather” with only the quill, which is very thin and slender, till quite the end, where there is just a little oval piece of the soft web—the part that looks really like a feather—left upon it. That is what makes them look like arrows. But is it not curious that the “funny feathers” ofthisBird of Paradise are in his head instead of in his tail? I think it must be because Dame Nature wanted to make him a little different.Of course you will see at once that six feathers like that—to say nothing of his wonderful goldenbreast—make the Six-shafted (or Golden) Bird of Paradise quite as remarkable as the Black or the Blue, or any of the other, Birds of Paradise. Whether it makes himmoreremarkable, that I really can't say.Youmust make up your mind about that. The fact is,allthe Birds of Paradise are remarkable. I am sure if they were all together in one place, and you were to say out loud that any one of them was themostremarkable, all the other ones would be very much offended.But now, besides his six little shafts or arrows and the beautiful golden feathers on his throat and breast—they are very large, I must tell you, those feathers, and sometimes they look green and blue as well as golden—this Bird of Paradise has two immense tufts of beautiful, soft, silky feathers on each side of the breast. So large each tuft is, that when he lifts them both up—as of course he can do—they almost hide him altogether. Then on the back of his head he has a band of feathers, so wonderfully bright that they do not seem to be feathers at all. They look more like jewels—yes, jewels. It is as if some magician had taken the sheen and shining light out of the emerald and topaz, and put them on that bird's head, and told them to stay there. Then on his forehead, just above the beak—as if all this were not enough—there is a patch, quite a large patch, of pure whitefeathers that shine like satin. Really I think you might almost say that this Bird of Paradise wasthemost wonderful of all the Birds of Paradise. But take care, do not say it out loud or you will offendallthe others. Only I forgot, they are not here. Well, then, youmaysay it out loud, if you really think so. I do wish I could have got this bird's picture, but as he would not give it me, you must look at the picture of the Golden-winged Bird of Paradise instead.Heis a very handsome bird, too—very much brighter than he looks.GOLDEN-WINGED BIRD OF PARADISEWell, this makes the sixth Bird of Paradise which I have been able to tell you something about—I mean about their appearance, for very little else is known about them. But, do you know, there are some forty or fifty different kinds, and, of course, if I were to describe them all, or anything like all (which, however, I should not be able to do), this little book would become quite a big book, and there would be no room in it for any other kinds of beautiful birds. So I won't describe any more Birds of Paradise, but I will just say something, before getting on to the other beautiful birds, about Birds of Paradise and beautiful birds in general. That means about most Birds of Paradise and most other beautiful birds. When we talk about things in general, or people in general, we mean most things or most people. But that must be in another chapter,for this one has been quite long enough, and so we must end it. Oh, but wait a minute. Really, I was quite forgetting. First you must get your mother to promise never to buy a hat in which there are any feathers belonging to the Golden or Six-shafted Bird of Paradise. Yes, and never to wear it either, even if she did not buy it, but had it given to her. Of course your father might give your mother a hat, but if he were to give her one of that sort, he would have to take it back to the shop and change it for another.
Now I have told you about two very beautiful Birds of Paradise, and in this chapter I shall tell you about some others; at least I shall try to tell you what they are like, because not so very much is known about their habits, what they do, or how they live. That is because they live in such wild parts of the world, in such deep, dense forests, and on such high, steep hills. Not many travellers have been into these out-of-the-way places, and those that have gone there, instead of trying to watch them and find out all about them—which would have been so interesting—have shot at them with their guns whenever they have seen them, and have either killed them or driven them away. It is not by killing birds or by driving them away that you can find out much about their habits.
It would be much better if these travellers were to take a good pair of glasses and were to sit downin the forests or on the hills and watch the birds through the glasses whenever they saw them; for with a good pair of glasses one can watch birds even when they do not come very near to one. Then we should know something about them, and the more we know about a bird or any other living creature the more interesting it becomes for us. One cannot beveryinterested in something that one knows nothing about, but as one begins to know even a little about it, it begins to get interesting directly. But then, why is it that the travellers who go out to these countries take guns with them instead of glasses, and shoot the birds—as well as other animals—instead of watching them? That is a question which I cannot answer. All I can tell you is that it is as I say, and I am afraid the wicked little demon has something to do with it. But now we must get on, and first we come to the Lesser Bird of Paradise.
The Lesser Bird of Paradise is something like the Great Bird of Paradise, only it is not quite so handsome and not nearly so big—which, of course, is what you would expect from its name. Where the Great Bird of Paradise is brown the lesser one is brown too, but it is a lighter brown, not such a nice, rich, coffee-coloured one as the other, and, on the breast, this brown colour does not change into ablackish-violet or a browny-purple as you know it does in the Great Bird of Paradise—it is brown there just the same. On the back, though, the Lesser Bird of Paradise is all yellow, so that here, if you remember, it has the advantage; but then the long plumes on each side under the wings are notsolong as in the Great Bird of Paradise, and they have only just a tinge of orange in them, instead of being of the beautiful golden-orange colour thathisones are. The tips of them, too, are white instead of mauvy-brown, and the two funny feathers in the tail are much shorter than the Great Bird of Paradise's funny feathers.
THE LESSER BIRD OF PARADISE
THE LESSER BIRD OF PARADISE
THE LESSER BIRD OF PARADISE
But although the Lesser Bird of Paradise is not such a beautiful bird as the Great Bird of Paradise is, still it is a very beautiful bird indeed—what Bird of Paradise is not?—and as it is commoner than the other Birds of Paradise and easier to get, it is the one that is most often killed and put into the hats that the women with the frozen hearts wear; which is why I want you to jump up and throw your arms round your mother's neck and make her promise never, never to wear a hat that has a Lesser Bird of Paradise in it.
And now, what would you say to a Black Bird of Paradise? For there is one—yes, and such a splendid bird. “Oh, but,” you will say,“if he is black he cannot be soverybeautiful, for he cannot be of all sorts of beautiful colours like the other ones.” But have you not heard of a black diamond? That is black, butinits blackness all sorts of wonderful colours are lying asleep, and sometimes they wake up and flash out of it, as the sun's rays do out of a dark, stormy cloud, and then they go back into it again and are lost, as the sun's rays are lost when the sun goes in. Yes, they are asleep, those colours, and whilst they are asleep the diamond is really black, but when they wake up and begin to gleam and flash, and sparkle, and shoot about, then it is not ablackdiamond any more, although we may call it so.
And there may be a dark, deep cavern, so dark and so deep that you would be quite afraid to go into it, especially at night. But some gipsies, who were not afraid, have gone into it and have lighted a fire, and the flames leap up and glimmer through the smoke, and then sink for a moment and shoot up again, and fall on the sides and roof of the cavern, and make a deep glow in its mouth, and flicker on the leaves of the trees outside, and send out long tongues of flame that make a red light in the air and lick the darkness off everything that they touch. That cavernwasdark and black before the fire was lighted in it, and when the fire goes outit will be dark and black again, but it is not dark and black just now, whilst the red fire is burning.
Or it may be a dark night, very dark and stormy, so dark that it is difficult for people who are out in it to find their way, whilst people who only look out of the window, say that it is a pitch-dark night. But now the rain is beginning to fall, and it comes down faster and faster, and there is a muttering in the dull sky, and, all at once, a flash of lightning leaps out of the darkness, cutting it as though with a red, jagged knife, and for an instant it is day, and you see the leaves on the trees, and the rain-drops falling through the air, and the fields with haystacks standing in them, or rivers winding through them, and the distant hills, and the line where the earth meets the heavens. Then, all in a moment—almost before you can say “Oh,” and quite before the great clap of thunder that follows the lightning-flash—it is night—deep, dark, black night—again. The night in which there is a storm like that is a dark night, but it is not dark when the lightning is leaping and flashing.
It is the same with this Black Bird of Paradise. At first when you look at him, all his plumage is of a deep, dark, velvety black, a lovely black, a beautiful, smooth, glossy black, a black that seems almost to gleam and to sparkle as if it were jewellery—black velvet jewellery you may call it, very handsome, very beautiful indeed. Still it is black, but all at once all the colours that have lain asleep in it—blues and greens, and bluey-greens and greeny-blues, and purples and indigos, and wonderful bronzy reflections—wake up together, and flash out of it like the sparkles out of the diamond, like the tongues of fire out of the black cavern, like the lightning out of the dark night. There they all are, flashing and leaping about, meeting and mingling, then shooting apart, playing little games with each other, till all at once they fall asleep again, and there is only the smooth, glossy black, the deep, jetty black, the shining, gleaming, satiny-velvety black, the black velvet, black satin jewellery. That is what a Black Bird of Paradise is like, like a black diamond, like a cavern with a fire lighted in it, like a dark night with flashes of lightning.
But now I will tell you a little more about his appearance, for this that I have told you is only just to give you an idea of how that wonderful material, from which Dame Nature with her scissors cuts out all her children (for all things that are alive are the children of Dame Nature), can be black, and yet have all sorts of colours in it at the same time.
First, you must know—so as not to make anymistake—that this “Black Bird of Paradise” has another name—indeed he has two other names, but one of them is in Latin, so we won't bother about that. There are some birds that have no English names, and when we come to them we will have to call them by their Latin ones—but as long as a bird has an English name we will never trouble our heads about what its Latin name may be, not we, any more than the bird itself does, and no bird that has an English name ever thinks about what its name is in Latin—in fact I really do not believe that it knows. An English name is enough foranybird, if only it is sofortunateas to have one. Now this bird is so fortunate as to have two English names—the Black Bird of Paradise, that you know about—which is what the English people who live in its own country call it—and the Superb Bird of Paradise, which is what naturalists at home in England call it. TheSuperbBird of Paradise! Just fancy having a name like that! Supposing a gentleman—some friend of your father and mother, who calls sometimes at the house—were to be called the superb Mr. Jones or the superb Mr. Robinson! Only he would have to be very much more handsome than he is at all likely to be, before he would deserve a name likethat.
Well, the two most wonderful things about theSuperb or Black Bird of Paradise—after his marvellous black plumage, that has all sorts of colours lying asleep in it—are two wonderful ornaments that he has, one on his head and one on his breast. The one on his head is the most wonderful. It is a sort of crest—at least I think that is the best name for it. Some people, I know, call it a shield, but then that is what they call the other wonderful thing on the breast too; so, if they call that a shield, I think they should call this a helmet, for it is a helmet, and not a shield, that soldiers wear on the head.Ishall call it a crest, but it is one of the most extraordinary crests that any bird ever had. It is like a pair of black velvet lappets, so long that they go all down the back and reach half-an-inch beyond the tips of the wings. But at the back of the head, where this crest begins, the two lappets meet, and they are joined together for a little way before they begin to go apart. I tell you what will give you an idea of the shape of this crest. Have you ever seen a pair of trousers that have been washed, and are hanging out on a clothes-line to dry, with the legs very wide apart, so wide they look as if they had been stretched?—I don't know if they really have. Of course you have seen such a thing. Well, that will give you an idea—mind, that isallI can say—of what this wonderful crestthat is worn by the Black Bird of Paradise is like. The legs of the trousers are the two lappets, from where they are divided from each other, and, farther up, they join and become all one, just as the legs of a pair of trousersdo. Only, of course, I need hardly tell you that a crest of beautiful, black, velvety feathers, glossed with bronze and purple, has a far moreelegantappearance than a pair of trousers hanging out to dry, though it may have just alittlethe same shape.
KING BIRD OF PARADISE
KING BIRD OF PARADISE
KING BIRD OF PARADISE
Now I think you will agree with me that this crest is a wonderful thing, even when it is only lying down along the neck and body of the bird. But what would you say when you saw the Black Bird of Paradise lift it right up above its head?—which is what he does, you may be sure, when he wants to show off before the hen bird, who has no crest onherhead nor shield on her breast, and whose black feathers, I am afraid, are not nearly so glossy and velvety, and have no colours lying asleep in them and ready to wake up all of a sudden. Ah, you would think the Black Bird of Paradise a wonderful, wonderful bird if you were to see him bowing politely to his hen and lifting up his wonderful, wonderful crest to her.
But I told you this bird had a shield too, and when he lifts up his crest over his head, he shoots out hisshield in front of his breast, at the same time, and this shield is something of the same shape as the crest or helmet, only smaller, and always of a lovely bluey-green colour, with a glossy sheen upon it that is just like that upon satin. Yes,always, for the colours that go to sleep in the other parts of the Black Bird of Paradise's plumage, keep wide awake in the shield on its breast, or, if you ever do catch them napping, it is only just for a single instant, and then out they flash again, wider awake than ever. So now, if you were to say—as I am sure you would say—that the Black Bird of Paradise was a wonderful, wonderful bird, even if you were to see him with only his crest lifted up, what, ah,whatwould you say if you were to see him with his crest lifted up and his shield shot out at the same time? Why, I think that then you could not say less than that he was a wonderful, wonderful,wonderfulbird—three wonderfuls instead of only two. And indeed you would be right.
Yes, he is a wonder, is the Black Bird of Paradise, though I must tell you that he has not any of those long, silky feathers that hang down like cascades and shoot up like fountains, from the sides of those other Birds of Paradise I have been telling you about. And he has no long “funny feathers” in his tail either. You see he cannot have everything, and hiscrest and shield are instead of those. They are not quite so beautiful, perhaps, but I think they are still more wonderful. Even when his crest—his helmet—is laid down and his shield is not stuck out, the Black Bird of Paradise is a wonder, but when he raises the one up and shoots the other out, both at the same time, and says to the hen, “Look at me!” and all the colours that have been asleep in the helmet, or awake in the shield, gleam and flash and sparkle together, ah,thenhe is a wonder of wonders.
Then, do you think he is a bird that ought to be killed and killed and killed, only to have those beautiful, bronzy-black crests, and satiny-green, gleaming shields of his set in hats where they soon get dull and dusty, and where he can never raise them up or shoot them out or pay proper attention to them—because he is dead, dead, dead? Is he to be killed and killed till he is gone for ever, and there is not one more beautiful Black Bird of Paradise in the whole world? Oh no, no, no; it ought not to be so—it must not, itshallnot—because you will prevent it—yes, you. You will turn to your mother now, this minute, if she is there, if she is reading this to you, or, if not, you will run to her—oh, so quickly, so quickly—and ask her, beg her—keep on asking and asking, begging and begging her to promise—till shehaspromised—never,neverto buy a hat that has a beautiful Black Bird of Paradise in it.
Now, as I have said that the Black Bird of Paradise is such a very wonderful bird—as I have even called him a “wonder of wonders”—perhaps you will think that there is no other Bird of Paradise quite so wonderful as he is. Well, I do not wonder at your thinking so; and, do you know, whilst I was describing him to you and telling you how wonderful he was, I thought so too. But I had forgotten the Blue Bird of Paradise.
The Blue Bird of Paradise is quite as wonderful as the Black one. Perhaps—but mind I only say perhaps—he is even a little more wonderful. To begin with, blue is a very uncommon colour for a Bird of Paradise to be of. None of the Birds of Paradise that I have told you about have feathers that are really blue. There are blue lights, I know, in some of their feathers, especially on the head, but still they are not quite blue. You could hardly call them blue feathers, for there is a green light or a purple light as well as a blue light in them, which makes them bluey-green or greeny purple, or, at any rate, green or purpleandblue, not just blue by itself. And then, as you know, sometimes all those lights go to sleep and then the feathers are black. I do not think there is any Bird of Paradise except the BlueBird of Paradise whose feathers are really and truly blue, and I am quite sure that there is no other one—at least that we know of—which has so much blue about it, that you would think of it as a blue bird, or that has blue feather-fountains—those wonderful long silky plumes that grow out of each side under the wings.
That is what is most wonderful in the Blue Bird of Paradise. There is no other Bird of Paradise that can sit under a blue fountain or look out of a blue sunset. But the plumes of the Blue Bird of Paradise are not so long as those of the Great or the Lesser Bird of Paradise, and when he spreads them out they go more on each side of him than up over his head, and, for this reason, I think, he looks more as if he was looking out of a sunset than sitting under a fountain. You have seen a beautiful sunset often; there will be blue in it somewhere, cool, lovely lakes or bays, or long, stretching inlets, of the loveliest, purest, most delicate blue. But the clouds that float in those bays and lakes like islands, or that shut them in and make their shores, like great burning continents, are not blue, but rosy red or fiery crimson or molten gold or golden-crimson flame. That, at least, is what the brightest ones are like, those that are gathered nearest round the sun. Now, if they could keep all their brightness and glowingness andbe blue instead of rose or crimson or gold, then it would be a blue sunset; and that is what the sunset is like that the Blue Bird of Paradise looks out of, when he spreads out his plumes, just as the sunset that the Red Bird of Paradise looks out of, whenhespreads outhisplumes, is like a red sunset—only of feathers, of course. One is a blue feather-sunset, and the other a red feather-sunset.
And how soft those feathers are, those wonderful, blue sunset-feathers of the wonderful Blue Bird of Paradise. Oh, I cannot tell you how softly they droop down over his breast, or how softly—howverysoftly—each feather touches the other one, upon it. How softly, I wonder—for I know you will want me to say. As softly as a snowflake falls upon snow? Oh, more softly than that. As softly as two gossamers are blown together in the air? Still more softly, even. As softly, then, as your mother kisses you when you are asleep, and she does not wish to wake you? Yes, I think it is as softly, or almost as softly, as that. Those are two of the very softest kisses—when your mother kisses you when you are asleep, so as not to wake you, and when the soft blue feathers of the plumes on each side of a Blue Bird of Paradise, meet and kiss each other on its breast.
Now that is all I am going to tell you about the front part of the Blue Bird of Paradise—for thosewonderful blue feathers that grow on each side become the front part of him when he spreads them out. You see, they open out like two fans, with the handles turned towards each other, and meet together on the breast and above the head, so as to make one large fan or screen. Of course there is something behind this screen, and through it peeps the head of the bird, which is very pretty too. But you don't look at his head, you don't seem to see it. All you see or look at are those beautiful, beautiful plumes, that lovely screen, that wonderful soft blue feather-sunset.
As for the back part of this wonderful Blue Bird of Paradise, well, that is blue too, most of it—a handsome blue, a lovely blue, a gleaming, shining, glossy, satiny blue that looks darker when you see it from one side, and lighter when you see it from another, and which gleams and glints and is very resplendent (which is a word your mother will explain to you) however you look at it. Oh, a glorious blue, a magnificent blue, but notsucha blue as the blue of those soft lovely feathers that spread out on each side and curl over and meet and kiss each other so softly, on the breast. And the head and neck of the Blue Bird of Paradise (for sometimes he puts them behind the screen, and then they are the back part of him) are of a soft velvet brownthat, as you look at it, becomes a soft velvet-claret-magenta colour (which your mother knows all about and will explain to you), and in his tail there are two long “funny feathers” that hang down from the bough he is sitting on, and—andnowyou must try to imagine him.Whenyou have imagined him—or before you have, if you are not able to—you must make your mother promise—now what? You know, of course. You must make her promiseneverto wear a hat with a Blue Bird of Paradise's feathers in it.
Now we come to the Golden or Six-shafted Bird of Paradise, who lives just in one part of New Guinea—that long part at the north that goes out into the sea, and which we call a peninsula; you have only to look at the map and you will see it. Now I think of it, the Superb or Black Bird of Paradise—or shall we say the Superb Black Bird of Paradise?—lives there too, so I daresay they sometimes see each other. Perhaps they call on each other, for, you see, they are both of them distinguished. One is superb and the other golden, and when two people are like that they do not mind calling upon one another. You see, neither of them can be hurt by it then. Asuperbperson may call upon even agoldenperson, and yet feel quite well after it, and it will not do agoldenperson any harm at all to call upon asuperbperson. So, ifbirds are like people, I feel sure that sometimes the Golden and the Superb Bird of Paradise call upon each other.
Now you will want to know why this Bird of Paradise is called both the Golden and the Six-shafted Bird of Paradise. Well, he is called the Golden Bird of Paradise because he has lovely golden feathers on his throat and breast, and he is called the Six-shafted Bird of Paradise because six little arrows—for that is what they look like—seem to have been shot into his head, three on each side—arrows, you know, are sometimes called shafts. These little shafts or arrows are six inches long—almost as long as the bird itself—and bend right back over his body, as far as to the tail. Of course each of them is really a feather—an arrow that is all feather—but it is a “funny feather” with only the quill, which is very thin and slender, till quite the end, where there is just a little oval piece of the soft web—the part that looks really like a feather—left upon it. That is what makes them look like arrows. But is it not curious that the “funny feathers” ofthisBird of Paradise are in his head instead of in his tail? I think it must be because Dame Nature wanted to make him a little different.
Of course you will see at once that six feathers like that—to say nothing of his wonderful goldenbreast—make the Six-shafted (or Golden) Bird of Paradise quite as remarkable as the Black or the Blue, or any of the other, Birds of Paradise. Whether it makes himmoreremarkable, that I really can't say.Youmust make up your mind about that. The fact is,allthe Birds of Paradise are remarkable. I am sure if they were all together in one place, and you were to say out loud that any one of them was themostremarkable, all the other ones would be very much offended.
But now, besides his six little shafts or arrows and the beautiful golden feathers on his throat and breast—they are very large, I must tell you, those feathers, and sometimes they look green and blue as well as golden—this Bird of Paradise has two immense tufts of beautiful, soft, silky feathers on each side of the breast. So large each tuft is, that when he lifts them both up—as of course he can do—they almost hide him altogether. Then on the back of his head he has a band of feathers, so wonderfully bright that they do not seem to be feathers at all. They look more like jewels—yes, jewels. It is as if some magician had taken the sheen and shining light out of the emerald and topaz, and put them on that bird's head, and told them to stay there. Then on his forehead, just above the beak—as if all this were not enough—there is a patch, quite a large patch, of pure whitefeathers that shine like satin. Really I think you might almost say that this Bird of Paradise wasthemost wonderful of all the Birds of Paradise. But take care, do not say it out loud or you will offendallthe others. Only I forgot, they are not here. Well, then, youmaysay it out loud, if you really think so. I do wish I could have got this bird's picture, but as he would not give it me, you must look at the picture of the Golden-winged Bird of Paradise instead.Heis a very handsome bird, too—very much brighter than he looks.
GOLDEN-WINGED BIRD OF PARADISE
GOLDEN-WINGED BIRD OF PARADISE
GOLDEN-WINGED BIRD OF PARADISE
Well, this makes the sixth Bird of Paradise which I have been able to tell you something about—I mean about their appearance, for very little else is known about them. But, do you know, there are some forty or fifty different kinds, and, of course, if I were to describe them all, or anything like all (which, however, I should not be able to do), this little book would become quite a big book, and there would be no room in it for any other kinds of beautiful birds. So I won't describe any more Birds of Paradise, but I will just say something, before getting on to the other beautiful birds, about Birds of Paradise and beautiful birds in general. That means about most Birds of Paradise and most other beautiful birds. When we talk about things in general, or people in general, we mean most things or most people. But that must be in another chapter,for this one has been quite long enough, and so we must end it. Oh, but wait a minute. Really, I was quite forgetting. First you must get your mother to promise never to buy a hat in which there are any feathers belonging to the Golden or Six-shafted Bird of Paradise. Yes, and never to wear it either, even if she did not buy it, but had it given to her. Of course your father might give your mother a hat, but if he were to give her one of that sort, he would have to take it back to the shop and change it for another.