CHAPTER IXHermit Humming-Birds and Two Other OnesI told you that as soon as the sun's light fell upon the earth all the sunbeams that had been asleep there woke up, and were changed into Humming-birds. But there was just one sunbeam who had gone to sleep in a cave, and whenhewoke up it was quite dark, and sohewas changed into a Humming-bird without any colours, and when his brother Humming-birds saw him they laughed at him, and called him a hermit. It was very wrong of them to do so, for it was not his fault that he was brown. There is nothing wrong in going to sleep in a cave, and, of course, he could not tell what would happen. But they thought he looked ridiculous, coming out of it all brown, like a hermit. I don't think that made him ridiculous, really, but, even if it did, they should not have laughed at him. We should not laugh at people because they are ridiculous. It makes them unhappy, and, besides, we may be sure that in some way or other we are just as ridiculous as they are,Wemay not know in what way.Thatonly shows how ignorant we are. It is best not to laugh at other people. If wewantto laugh at any one, we can always laugh at ourselves.Now, this poor Hermit Humming-bird was unhappy because he alone had no colours, and because all the other Humming-birds laughed at him. He complained of it to the sun, who was his father, and explained how it had happened. “It is unfortunate,” said the sun; “but since I was unable to shine upon you, when you awoke, I cannot give you my own livery to wear now. But do not be unhappy. The world is full of brightness and beauty, and if you go about asking for some of it from those who have it, none of them will refuse you, when they know that you are one of my children. They will grant it you for the love of me, for I am loved of all that live upon the earth. In this way, though I cannot clothe you directly from myself, it will come to the same thing in the end, for it is through me that all things have their beauty, so that in having what was theirs you will have what is mine, and still you will be a living sunbeam. Only do not ask any of your brother Humming-birds to give you anything, because then you will not be under an obligation to them.” (Your mother will explain to you what being under an obligation is, and how very manyyouare under toher.)So the poor Hermit Humming-bird went about through the world, asking all the beautiful things in it for some of their beauty, and not one that he asked refused him, for the love of his father the sun. He begged of the clouds at sunset, when they were all crimson lake, and at sunrise, when they were all topaz and amber, and all three of these lovely colours fell upon his throat and struggled for the mastery, like the green and blue on the breast of that other Humming-bird that I have told you about. Then he begged of the bluest stars in the sky, and just on the outer edge of his now lovely throat, on the edge of that shining gorget, there fell such a blue as made one feel in heaven only to look at it. After that he begged of the sea that the sun was shining on in the morning, and now his head was of the loveliest pale sea-green, and then, again, he begged of it a little later in the day, and his back became a darker green, almost, if not quite, as lovely as the lovely one on his head. Thus he went about the world, begging and asking, and he did not forget either the jewels, or the flowers, or the colours that live in the rainbow. And at the end of the day this Humming-bird that had been all brown, and that his brothers had called a hermit, was one of the loveliest of all the Humming-birds, and his English name (we won't trouble about the Latin one) was the All-glorious Humming-Bird.He was not called a hermit any more, after that, but those Humming-birds that had called him one, and laughed at him when he was brown, were changed into hermits themselves. That is how there came to be Hermit Humming-birds in the world, and one of them is the one that surprised you so much when I described him to you, because he was all brown. They are all of them brown, but you must not laugh at them, for all that, even though they did at their brother. They have their punishment, and it is bad enough to be punished and made all brown, without being laughed at about it as well.Now, of course, as all the Hermit Humming-birds are brown, it would be no use to describe them to you, one at a time, like the others. Instead of that I will tell you about some more Humming-birds who are pretty, and who came to be what they are like now in some curious way or other, which had nothing to do with their having once been sunbeams. One of these is the Snow-cap. He is very small, almost as small as the smallest of the Humming-birds—and you know how small that is—and although he is not exactly brown, still he is not at all a brilliant bird for a Humming-bird. What makes him so pretty is this. First, all the whole crown of his head is of a beautiful, pure, silky white, which makes it look as if a large, soft snowflake had fallen upon it,and then, when he spreads out his tail like a fan—which you may be sure he knows how to do—there are two white patches upon it as well, which look like two smaller snowflakes. It is not many Humming-birds who are ornamented inthatway. How did this one get those white patches, and are they really snowflakes that fell upon him? You shall hear. Once they were not white at all, those patches, but coloured with all the colours of the rainbow, and more brilliant than anything you could possibly think of, more brilliant even than any other colour that is upon any other Humming-bird. Indeed they weresobrilliant that no one could look at them, and that made the Humming-bird very proud indeed. “Could my rivals have looked at me,” he said, “they would never have confessed my superiority, however plainly they must have seen it. Not to be able to look at me is, in itself, a confession. They are dazzled, and well they may be, for to look at me is like looking at the sun himself. Surely there is no earthly brightness that I do not outshine.” And as the proud bird said this, he looked up, and there, far above him in the blue dome of the sky, were the snows of the mighty mountain Chimborazo, and in their white, dazzling purity they seemed even brighter than himself. But instead of being humbled, the Humming-bird only felt insulted, and resolvedto do something decisive. “I will thaw those white robes of his,” he said; “my brightness shall burn them away, and there shall be no more snow in the world.” He was just a little larger than a humble-bee.So up this Humming-bird flew, right on to the top of Chimborazo, the great high mountain, where there was snow everywhere. “Have you come to thaw me?” said the snow, as it fell around him. “That is ridiculous. We shall see which of us is best able to extinguish the other.” With that one snowflake fell upon his head and two more upon his tail, just over those three patches that had been so marvellously bright. He tried to shake them off, but he could not. They stayed there, and instead of having been able to thaw them, it wastheywho had puthisbrightness quite out. All those wonderful colours were gone now, and there was only the snow-white. “Fly back,” said the snow, “or I will quite cover you. You have lost that of which you were so proud, but you have me in exchange. Fly back, and be a wiser bird for the future.” So the Humming-bird flew back, ashamed and crestfallen, and fearing to show himself. “What will the others say when they see me?” he thought. But when the other Humming-birds saw him, they all cried out,“Oh, look! What beautiful bird is this that has come to dwell amongst us? What an exquisite white! Surely he has been to the top of Chimborazo and brought down some of its snow upon him. How pure and how lovely!” Yes, they could look at him now, and they thought him more beautiful than when they were blinded and dazzled. That is how that Humming-bird got his snow-white patches. He had no colours now with which to outrival the other Humming-birds, but he could put up with that, for the white snow was lovelier than them all.And then there is the Humming-bird that the Indians call the Jewel-flower-sunrise-and-sunset-Humming-bird (only they have one word for it, which makes it sound better). I have forgotten what his English name is—I am not quite sure if he has one. This Humming-bird was very beautiful to begin with, so beautiful, indeed, that the flowers, as he hovered over them, fell in love with him and wished to give him their colours to wear, for their sakes. But the Humming-bird did not want their colours, for he thought his own were much more beautiful. “If you sparkled like jewels,” he said, “as well as being soft and bright, then it would be different. But your beauty is too homely. You are not sufficiently refulgent.” (That was a word he was fond of, for he had heardit applied to himself. Your mother will tell you what it means).So the flowers prayed to the sun from whom they have their beautiful colours, and the sun made them like jewels—jewels of the rose and the violet, of the lily and the daffodil, the sunflower, the pink and carnation. Perhaps they were not just the same flowers as those, for they grew in America, but they had all their colours and many more. “That is an improvement certainly,” said the Humming-bird, when he had looked at them. “You are much more beautiful now, but you remain the same all day long. It is very different with the sky. Every morning and evening when the sun rises and sets, she has quite a special beauty, and it is only then that she can be said to be refulgent. If it were so with you, then I might take you, but I do not care for flowers who have no sunrise or sunset.” So the flowers prayed to the sun again, and he made them as much more beautiful when he rose and set at morning and evening as the sky is then in the east and west. And when the Humming-bird saw that they were really refulgent, he took all their colours, and, for a little while, the flowers were quite pale, and only got bright again by degrees. But they never flashed and sparkled like jewels any more,and there was never another flower sunrise or another flower sunset. The Humming-bird kept all that for himself; he never gave any of it back to the flowers. It was not very generous of him. Ithinkhe was going to be punished for it, but, somehow or other, it was forgotten. Punishments do get forgotten, sometimes—almost as often, perhaps, as rewards.Those are just a few of the beautiful Humming-birds that there are in the world—in that new world that Columbus discovered—but, as you know, there are more than four hundred different kinds, and numbers of them are just as beautiful—some perhaps even more beautiful—than those I have told you about. And you may be sure that they know exactly what to do with their beauty, how to raise up their crests and fan out their tails and ruffle out their gorgets and tippets in the way to make them look most magnificent, and give the greatest possible pleasure to their wives, who are all of them hermits—poor plain Humming-birds—just as the Birds of Paradise do fortheirwives, who are hermits too.And do you know that when two gentlemen Humming-birds are both trying to please the same lady—but that, of course, is before she has married either of them—they very often fight, and it is then that they gleam and flash and sparkle, more brilliantlythan at any other time. Ah, what a wonderful sight that must be to see—those fights between little fiery, winged meteors, those jewel-combats in the air—diamond and ruby and sapphire and topaz and emerald and amethyst, all angry with each other, shooting out sparks at each other, trying to blind each other, to flash each other down! Ah, those are fiery battles indeed, and yet when they are over—you will think it wonderful—not one Humming-bird has been burnt up by another one. No, Humming-birds do not kill each other, they do not even hurt each other very much, they are only angry, and even that does not last very long.Weare not very angry with the poor Humming-birds, I even think we must be fond of them, for there is really hardly one that we have not called by some pretty name, though not nearly so pretty as itself. And yet we kill them, we take away those bright little gem-like lives that are so lovely and so happy. The people who live in those countries make very fine nets—as fine and delicate as those that ladies use for their hair—and put them over the flowers or the shrubs that the Humming-birds come to, so that they get entangled in them and cannot fly away. Then, when they come and find them, they kill them (couldyoukill a living sunbeam?), and send their skins over here to be put into the hats ofwomen whose hearts the wicked little demon has frozen.Into hats! Ah, I think if one of those poor, frozen-hearted women could see a Humming-bird, sitting alive in its own little fairy nest, she would blush—yes,blush—to think of it in her hat, even though she wore a pretty one and was pretty, herself, too. For I must tell you that the nests that Humming-birds make are so pretty and graceful and delicate that one might almost think they had been made by the fairies, and, indeed, the Indians say that the fairies do make them, and give them to the Humming-birds. But that is not really true. Humming-birds make their own nests, like other birds, though I cannot help thinking that, sometimes, the fairies must sit in them. Yes, they sit and swing in them sometimes, I feel sure, in the warm, tropical nights, when the stars are set thick in the sky and the fire-flies make stars in the air. For they hang like little cradles from the tips of the leaves of palm-trees, or from the ends of long, dangling creepers or tendrils, or even from the drooping petal of a flower. They are made of the fine webs of spiders, all plaited and woven, or of down that is like our thistle-down, but thicker and softer and silkier. And you may think of everything that is soft and delicate and graceful and fragile and fairy-like, but when yousee a Humming-bird's nest, you will think them all coarse—yes,coarse—by comparison. And to think of that bright little glittering thing, sitting there alive and warm, in its warm little soft fairy nest, and then to think of it in ahat—anddead! Oh, dear!—dusty too, I feel sure.Oh, dear! But it is all the fault of that most wicked little demon, andyouare going to set it right.Now perhaps you will wonder why there has been nothing about promising yet, for there have been thirteen Humming-birds in the two last chapters, and not a single promise about any of them. But then, what would be the use of promising about thirteen when there are four hundred and more? It would be ever so much better,Ithink, to promise about all the four hundred and more together, and that is what I want you to ask your mother to do. Then all those little glittering, jewelly, fairy-like things will go on living and being happy—will go on glittering and gleaming, flashing through the air, sparkling amongst the flowers, sitting and shining in dear little soft swinging cradles, on the tips of broad, green palm leaves, or the petals of fair, drooping flowers. They will go on beinglivingsunbeams then, not poor, dead, dusty ones in hats. And it will be you who will have done this, you who will have kept sunbeams alive in the world, instead of letting them be killed and go out ofit for ever. Yes, it will be you—and your dear mother. So now you must say to your dear mother, “Oh, mother, do promise never to wear a hat that has a Humming-bird in it.” Say it quickly, and witheverso many kisses.
I told you that as soon as the sun's light fell upon the earth all the sunbeams that had been asleep there woke up, and were changed into Humming-birds. But there was just one sunbeam who had gone to sleep in a cave, and whenhewoke up it was quite dark, and sohewas changed into a Humming-bird without any colours, and when his brother Humming-birds saw him they laughed at him, and called him a hermit. It was very wrong of them to do so, for it was not his fault that he was brown. There is nothing wrong in going to sleep in a cave, and, of course, he could not tell what would happen. But they thought he looked ridiculous, coming out of it all brown, like a hermit. I don't think that made him ridiculous, really, but, even if it did, they should not have laughed at him. We should not laugh at people because they are ridiculous. It makes them unhappy, and, besides, we may be sure that in some way or other we are just as ridiculous as they are,Wemay not know in what way.Thatonly shows how ignorant we are. It is best not to laugh at other people. If wewantto laugh at any one, we can always laugh at ourselves.
Now, this poor Hermit Humming-bird was unhappy because he alone had no colours, and because all the other Humming-birds laughed at him. He complained of it to the sun, who was his father, and explained how it had happened. “It is unfortunate,” said the sun; “but since I was unable to shine upon you, when you awoke, I cannot give you my own livery to wear now. But do not be unhappy. The world is full of brightness and beauty, and if you go about asking for some of it from those who have it, none of them will refuse you, when they know that you are one of my children. They will grant it you for the love of me, for I am loved of all that live upon the earth. In this way, though I cannot clothe you directly from myself, it will come to the same thing in the end, for it is through me that all things have their beauty, so that in having what was theirs you will have what is mine, and still you will be a living sunbeam. Only do not ask any of your brother Humming-birds to give you anything, because then you will not be under an obligation to them.” (Your mother will explain to you what being under an obligation is, and how very manyyouare under toher.)
So the poor Hermit Humming-bird went about through the world, asking all the beautiful things in it for some of their beauty, and not one that he asked refused him, for the love of his father the sun. He begged of the clouds at sunset, when they were all crimson lake, and at sunrise, when they were all topaz and amber, and all three of these lovely colours fell upon his throat and struggled for the mastery, like the green and blue on the breast of that other Humming-bird that I have told you about. Then he begged of the bluest stars in the sky, and just on the outer edge of his now lovely throat, on the edge of that shining gorget, there fell such a blue as made one feel in heaven only to look at it. After that he begged of the sea that the sun was shining on in the morning, and now his head was of the loveliest pale sea-green, and then, again, he begged of it a little later in the day, and his back became a darker green, almost, if not quite, as lovely as the lovely one on his head. Thus he went about the world, begging and asking, and he did not forget either the jewels, or the flowers, or the colours that live in the rainbow. And at the end of the day this Humming-bird that had been all brown, and that his brothers had called a hermit, was one of the loveliest of all the Humming-birds, and his English name (we won't trouble about the Latin one) was the All-glorious Humming-Bird.He was not called a hermit any more, after that, but those Humming-birds that had called him one, and laughed at him when he was brown, were changed into hermits themselves. That is how there came to be Hermit Humming-birds in the world, and one of them is the one that surprised you so much when I described him to you, because he was all brown. They are all of them brown, but you must not laugh at them, for all that, even though they did at their brother. They have their punishment, and it is bad enough to be punished and made all brown, without being laughed at about it as well.
Now, of course, as all the Hermit Humming-birds are brown, it would be no use to describe them to you, one at a time, like the others. Instead of that I will tell you about some more Humming-birds who are pretty, and who came to be what they are like now in some curious way or other, which had nothing to do with their having once been sunbeams. One of these is the Snow-cap. He is very small, almost as small as the smallest of the Humming-birds—and you know how small that is—and although he is not exactly brown, still he is not at all a brilliant bird for a Humming-bird. What makes him so pretty is this. First, all the whole crown of his head is of a beautiful, pure, silky white, which makes it look as if a large, soft snowflake had fallen upon it,and then, when he spreads out his tail like a fan—which you may be sure he knows how to do—there are two white patches upon it as well, which look like two smaller snowflakes. It is not many Humming-birds who are ornamented inthatway. How did this one get those white patches, and are they really snowflakes that fell upon him? You shall hear. Once they were not white at all, those patches, but coloured with all the colours of the rainbow, and more brilliant than anything you could possibly think of, more brilliant even than any other colour that is upon any other Humming-bird. Indeed they weresobrilliant that no one could look at them, and that made the Humming-bird very proud indeed. “Could my rivals have looked at me,” he said, “they would never have confessed my superiority, however plainly they must have seen it. Not to be able to look at me is, in itself, a confession. They are dazzled, and well they may be, for to look at me is like looking at the sun himself. Surely there is no earthly brightness that I do not outshine.” And as the proud bird said this, he looked up, and there, far above him in the blue dome of the sky, were the snows of the mighty mountain Chimborazo, and in their white, dazzling purity they seemed even brighter than himself. But instead of being humbled, the Humming-bird only felt insulted, and resolvedto do something decisive. “I will thaw those white robes of his,” he said; “my brightness shall burn them away, and there shall be no more snow in the world.” He was just a little larger than a humble-bee.
So up this Humming-bird flew, right on to the top of Chimborazo, the great high mountain, where there was snow everywhere. “Have you come to thaw me?” said the snow, as it fell around him. “That is ridiculous. We shall see which of us is best able to extinguish the other.” With that one snowflake fell upon his head and two more upon his tail, just over those three patches that had been so marvellously bright. He tried to shake them off, but he could not. They stayed there, and instead of having been able to thaw them, it wastheywho had puthisbrightness quite out. All those wonderful colours were gone now, and there was only the snow-white. “Fly back,” said the snow, “or I will quite cover you. You have lost that of which you were so proud, but you have me in exchange. Fly back, and be a wiser bird for the future.” So the Humming-bird flew back, ashamed and crestfallen, and fearing to show himself. “What will the others say when they see me?” he thought. But when the other Humming-birds saw him, they all cried out,“Oh, look! What beautiful bird is this that has come to dwell amongst us? What an exquisite white! Surely he has been to the top of Chimborazo and brought down some of its snow upon him. How pure and how lovely!” Yes, they could look at him now, and they thought him more beautiful than when they were blinded and dazzled. That is how that Humming-bird got his snow-white patches. He had no colours now with which to outrival the other Humming-birds, but he could put up with that, for the white snow was lovelier than them all.
And then there is the Humming-bird that the Indians call the Jewel-flower-sunrise-and-sunset-Humming-bird (only they have one word for it, which makes it sound better). I have forgotten what his English name is—I am not quite sure if he has one. This Humming-bird was very beautiful to begin with, so beautiful, indeed, that the flowers, as he hovered over them, fell in love with him and wished to give him their colours to wear, for their sakes. But the Humming-bird did not want their colours, for he thought his own were much more beautiful. “If you sparkled like jewels,” he said, “as well as being soft and bright, then it would be different. But your beauty is too homely. You are not sufficiently refulgent.” (That was a word he was fond of, for he had heardit applied to himself. Your mother will tell you what it means).
So the flowers prayed to the sun from whom they have their beautiful colours, and the sun made them like jewels—jewels of the rose and the violet, of the lily and the daffodil, the sunflower, the pink and carnation. Perhaps they were not just the same flowers as those, for they grew in America, but they had all their colours and many more. “That is an improvement certainly,” said the Humming-bird, when he had looked at them. “You are much more beautiful now, but you remain the same all day long. It is very different with the sky. Every morning and evening when the sun rises and sets, she has quite a special beauty, and it is only then that she can be said to be refulgent. If it were so with you, then I might take you, but I do not care for flowers who have no sunrise or sunset.” So the flowers prayed to the sun again, and he made them as much more beautiful when he rose and set at morning and evening as the sky is then in the east and west. And when the Humming-bird saw that they were really refulgent, he took all their colours, and, for a little while, the flowers were quite pale, and only got bright again by degrees. But they never flashed and sparkled like jewels any more,and there was never another flower sunrise or another flower sunset. The Humming-bird kept all that for himself; he never gave any of it back to the flowers. It was not very generous of him. Ithinkhe was going to be punished for it, but, somehow or other, it was forgotten. Punishments do get forgotten, sometimes—almost as often, perhaps, as rewards.
Those are just a few of the beautiful Humming-birds that there are in the world—in that new world that Columbus discovered—but, as you know, there are more than four hundred different kinds, and numbers of them are just as beautiful—some perhaps even more beautiful—than those I have told you about. And you may be sure that they know exactly what to do with their beauty, how to raise up their crests and fan out their tails and ruffle out their gorgets and tippets in the way to make them look most magnificent, and give the greatest possible pleasure to their wives, who are all of them hermits—poor plain Humming-birds—just as the Birds of Paradise do fortheirwives, who are hermits too.
And do you know that when two gentlemen Humming-birds are both trying to please the same lady—but that, of course, is before she has married either of them—they very often fight, and it is then that they gleam and flash and sparkle, more brilliantlythan at any other time. Ah, what a wonderful sight that must be to see—those fights between little fiery, winged meteors, those jewel-combats in the air—diamond and ruby and sapphire and topaz and emerald and amethyst, all angry with each other, shooting out sparks at each other, trying to blind each other, to flash each other down! Ah, those are fiery battles indeed, and yet when they are over—you will think it wonderful—not one Humming-bird has been burnt up by another one. No, Humming-birds do not kill each other, they do not even hurt each other very much, they are only angry, and even that does not last very long.Weare not very angry with the poor Humming-birds, I even think we must be fond of them, for there is really hardly one that we have not called by some pretty name, though not nearly so pretty as itself. And yet we kill them, we take away those bright little gem-like lives that are so lovely and so happy. The people who live in those countries make very fine nets—as fine and delicate as those that ladies use for their hair—and put them over the flowers or the shrubs that the Humming-birds come to, so that they get entangled in them and cannot fly away. Then, when they come and find them, they kill them (couldyoukill a living sunbeam?), and send their skins over here to be put into the hats ofwomen whose hearts the wicked little demon has frozen.
Into hats! Ah, I think if one of those poor, frozen-hearted women could see a Humming-bird, sitting alive in its own little fairy nest, she would blush—yes,blush—to think of it in her hat, even though she wore a pretty one and was pretty, herself, too. For I must tell you that the nests that Humming-birds make are so pretty and graceful and delicate that one might almost think they had been made by the fairies, and, indeed, the Indians say that the fairies do make them, and give them to the Humming-birds. But that is not really true. Humming-birds make their own nests, like other birds, though I cannot help thinking that, sometimes, the fairies must sit in them. Yes, they sit and swing in them sometimes, I feel sure, in the warm, tropical nights, when the stars are set thick in the sky and the fire-flies make stars in the air. For they hang like little cradles from the tips of the leaves of palm-trees, or from the ends of long, dangling creepers or tendrils, or even from the drooping petal of a flower. They are made of the fine webs of spiders, all plaited and woven, or of down that is like our thistle-down, but thicker and softer and silkier. And you may think of everything that is soft and delicate and graceful and fragile and fairy-like, but when yousee a Humming-bird's nest, you will think them all coarse—yes,coarse—by comparison. And to think of that bright little glittering thing, sitting there alive and warm, in its warm little soft fairy nest, and then to think of it in ahat—anddead! Oh, dear!—dusty too, I feel sure.Oh, dear! But it is all the fault of that most wicked little demon, andyouare going to set it right.
Now perhaps you will wonder why there has been nothing about promising yet, for there have been thirteen Humming-birds in the two last chapters, and not a single promise about any of them. But then, what would be the use of promising about thirteen when there are four hundred and more? It would be ever so much better,Ithink, to promise about all the four hundred and more together, and that is what I want you to ask your mother to do. Then all those little glittering, jewelly, fairy-like things will go on living and being happy—will go on glittering and gleaming, flashing through the air, sparkling amongst the flowers, sitting and shining in dear little soft swinging cradles, on the tips of broad, green palm leaves, or the petals of fair, drooping flowers. They will go on beinglivingsunbeams then, not poor, dead, dusty ones in hats. And it will be you who will have done this, you who will have kept sunbeams alive in the world, instead of letting them be killed and go out ofit for ever. Yes, it will be you—and your dear mother. So now you must say to your dear mother, “Oh, mother, do promise never to wear a hat that has a Humming-bird in it.” Say it quickly, and witheverso many kisses.
CHAPTER XThe Cock-of-the-Rock and the Lyre-BirdWell, I have told you about the Humming-birds and the Birds of Paradise, which are themostbeautiful birds that there are in the world. Now I will tell you about just a few other ones which are very beautiful, although they are not quite so beautiful as those are. One of them is the Cock-of-the-Rock, a bird which lives in South America, where the Humming-birds live. There are three kinds and they are all handsome, but the handsomest,Ithink, is the one that is called the Blood-red Cock-of-the-Rock. It is about the size of a small pigeon, and of the most wonderful blood-red colour you can imagine. You would think, when you saw it first, that it had not one feather on the whole of its body that was not of this brilliant crimson, but, after a little, when your eyes are not so dazzled, you see that its wings and tail are not red but brown. Only, when the wings are shut they are almost quite covered up by the flaming feathers of the back, and just on one part—that part which we should call the shoulders—they are red too. “A scarlet bird! A crimson bird!” that is what you would say first, if you were to see this wonderful Cock-of-the-Rock, and then, all at once, you would cry out, “Oh, but where is his beak? Why, he has no beak!” Yes, and you might almost say, “Where is his head?” for you don't see that either—at least, you only see the back of it, all the rest, and the beak too, is hidden in a wonderful crest of crimson feathers that almost looks like the head itself, only it is a little too big for that. This crest is just the shape of a tea-cosy, so that it looks as if some one had put a little tea-cosy made of the most splendid blood-red, fiery, crimson-sunset feathers right over the bird's head and covered it quite up. You see no beak at all, and itdoeslook so funny to see a bird without a beak—almostas funny as it would to see a beak without a bird.The two other kinds of Cock-of-the-Rock are very handsome birds, too. One of them has all its plumage orange-coloured, instead of crimson, and the other is of a colour between orange and crimson. So, if you were travelling from one part of South America to another, it would seem as if the same bird was getting brighter and brighter or darker and darker all the way, for the three different kinds do not live in the same parts of the country, but indifferent parts that join each other. Only, of course, you would have to go in the right direction, which would be, first, through the forests of British Guiana, then along the banks of the great river Amazon—which is the largest river in the world—then up the mountains of Peru, and then, still higher, up those of Ecuador. Or, you might start from Ecuador and go all the way to British Guiana. If you get an atlas and look for the map of South America, your mother will soon show you where all these places are.Now after what you know about the Humming-birds and the Birds of Paradise, you will not be surprised to hear that this brilliant crimson or orange-coloured bird has quite a sober-coloured wife, and that he is as careful to please her, as they are, by showing her his beautiful bright plumage in all the ways in which it looks best; in fact he is so very careful about it that I feel quite sure he pleases himself by doing so, at the same time. You know now that male birds dance, when they show their fine feathers to their wives and sweethearts, for I have told you about the “sácalelis” of the Great Bird of Paradise, and the way in which those other Birds of Paradise danced whilst the two travellers were watching them. But some birds have still more wonderful dances than these; at least they behave in a way that is even more like real dancing.Now the Cock-of-the-Rock is a very fine dancer indeed, and he has a regular place to dance and play in, which we may call his ball-room, or his drawing-room, or his play-ground—whichever name we like best. He chooses it in some part of the forest where it is a little open, and where the ground is soft and mossy, and here, every day, a number of birds assemble, some males and some females; for of course the hen-birds come too, there would be nothing to dance for without them. Then first one of the cocks walks out into the middle of the open space and begins to dance. He flutters and waves his wings, moves his head, with its wonderful crimson tea-cosy, from side to side, and hops about with the queerest little jumpy steps you ever saw. As he goes on he gets more and more excited, springs higher and higher into the air, waves his wings more and more violently, and shakes his head as if he were trying to shake off the tea-cosy, so as to have a cup of tea to refresh himself. All the other birds stand and look at him, criticise his performance, turn their heads towards each other, and make remarks, you may be sure. “How elegant!” exclaims a young hen Cock-of-the-Rock. “What spring! What elasticity! Really he is a very fine performer.” “I have seen finer ones in my time,” says an older hen—in fact quite anelderly bird. “One could judge better, however, if there were some one else to compare him with. He seems to be having it all his own way. Inmytime there was more emulation amongst male birds.” And you may be sure that, as soon as she says that, ever so many other Cocks-of-the-Rock step out into the ring, and there they are, all dancing together, all springing and jumping, all waving their wings, and all trying to shake the tea-cosies off their heads, so as to have a cup of tea for refreshment after all that exercise. Perhaps you will say that that isnonsense, because there is no teapot under the tea-cosy; but remember that no one has ever taken that tea-cosy off. How can you tell what is under a tea-cosy until you take it off. (Your mother will tell you that this is onlyfun.)COCK-OF-THE-ROCKBut what a strange, curious dance it is, this wonderful bird dance, all in the wild, lonely forest. Oh, how interesting it would be to see it—to find out one of those little, open places where the moss is all pressed smooth and firm, and then to hide somewhere near, and wait there quietly, quietly, without making a sound, all alone in the great, wild, lonely forest, until at last—at last—there is a crimson flash amongst the tree-trunks, and then another and another and another, as bird after bird comes flying or walking to the ball-room, and the dance begins. And sometimes you would see them chasing each other through the forest, all very excited, and often clinging to the trunks of the trees, and spreading and ruffling out their lovely plumage, so as to show it to each other, each one seeming to say, “Ithinkmine is finer than yours;perhapsI may be mistaken, but Ithinkso.” What beautiful birds! and what funny birds, and what interesting things they do whilst they are alive! As soon as they are dead they are not funny or interesting any more, and they are only beautiful as a shawl or a piece of embroidery isbeautiful. It is dead beauty then; the beauty of life—which is the highest beauty of all—is gone out of them.Now you can see many and many beautiful things that never had life in them, though some, such as beautiful statues and pictures, imitate life so marvellously that you would almost think they were alive. And you can admire these beautiful things, and take pleasure in looking at them, without having to feel sorry that they once were alive and happy, but have been killed for you to look at. Surely you would not wish a beautiful, happy bird to be killed, just for you to look at. You would not even wish it to be put in a cage and kept alive, in a way in which it could not be happy. No, you would rather know that it was alive and happy in its own country, and only imagine what it was like, and how beautiful it was. That is much the best way of seeing creatures, if we have no other way without killing them or putting them in prison—to imagine them; and there is ever so much more pleasure in imagining creatures alive and happy than in seeing them dead or wretched. It is a very fine thing, I can tell you, toimagine, and some people can do it a great deal better than others. Therearepeople who cannot do it at all, but we do not want birds killed forstupidpersons. People who cannot imagine can do capitally without seeing, either—just as well as people whocanimagine, only in another way. Now, just ask your mother to promise not to wear any hat that has the feathers of a beautiful Cock-of-the-Rock in it.In Australia—oh, but perhaps you want to know why this handsome bird is called the Cock-of-the-Rock, such a very funny name. Well, although it lives in forests and flies about amongst the trees, yet some of these forests are on the sides of mountains, so, of course, there are rocks all about. The Cock-of-the-Rock likes to perch upon a very high one; so, when the old travellers first saw it perched up there, and looking such a fine bird, they called it a Cock-of-the-Rock, and almost expected to hear it crow. At least, if this is not the right explanation, it is the only one I can think of. The Indiansmayhave another one, but if they have I cannot tell it you, because I do not know what it is. Perhaps if I were to think a little, I should know—or else I could imagine it—but I have no time to think or imagine just at present. I want to get on.In Australia, the great island-continent—the island that is so large that we call it a continent—there is a wonderful bird called the Lyre-bird. It is one of the most wonderful and the most beautiful birds that there is in the world, and all its wonder and all its beauty lies in its tail. This wonderful tail—as I amsure you will guess from the name of the bird—is shaped like a lyre, though it is much more beautiful than any lyre ever was, even the one that Apollo played on. You know, I dare say, what a lyre is, a kind of harp with a very graceful shape, curving first out and then in, and then out again on each side, and with the strings in the centre. Now the Lyre-bird has, on each side of its tail, two beautiful, broad feathers that curve in this way, and are of a pretty chestnut colour, with transparent spaces all the way down. These are the two outer tail feathers, and they are like the two sides of the lyre—the solid part of it which is held in the hand, and which we call the framework. Then, for the strings, which, as you know, are stretched across the hollow space within the framework, not from side to side, but lengthways from one end to the other, the Lyre-bird has a number of most beautiful, thin, graceful feathers, more graceful and delicate than the strings of any harp. Only, instead of being straight, like harp strings, these feathers are curved, and droop over to each side in a most graceful way, and instead of keeping inside the two broad feathers—the sides of the lyre—they come a long way past them, and instead of being only four, which is the number of strings that a lyre has, there are ever so many of them—more than a dozen, I feel sure. And if you could see these feathers, andthe way they are made, oh, you would think them wonderful. You know that on each side of the quill of most feathers there is what is called the web—which we have talked about—and this web is made of a number of little, light, delicate sprays, like miniature feathers, which we call barbs, and these are kept close together by having a lot of little, tiddy-tiny hooks (though such soft little things don't look like hooks a bit), which are called barbules, with which they catch hold of each other, and won't let each other go. That is why the web of a feather—on each side of the quill—is so smooth and even. But, now, in these wonderful feathers of the Lyre-bird, the little delicate things (the barbs) which make the webs are much fewer than in ordinary feathers, and they have no little hooks to catch hold of each other with, and instead of being all together, they are a quarter of an inch apart, and wave about, each by itself, looking like very delicate threads floating from the long slender quill of the feather. And that, too, is how those beautiful plume-feathers of the Birds of Paradise are formed, and you have seen something like it in the long ones of the peacock's tail. The tail of the Lyre-bird is not so grand, perhaps, as that of the peacock, but it is more graceful and delicate, and on the whole, Ithink(for on such points one can never be sure) it is still more wonderful.But now is it not very strange that any bird should have a tail like that—a tail that is shaped like Apollo's lyre? Well, I will tell you how it happened, for it is one of those things that requires an explanation—and is lucky. Once the great god Apollo (who is the god of music and song) was walking in Australia and playing upon his lyre. Now, I must tell you, at that time—it was a very long time ago—the Lyre-bird had not a tail like it has now, but quite an ordinary one; so, as it is only its tail that isextraordinary, it was quite an ordinary bird. But although it was ordinary in appearance, it was extremely musical, as it is now—I must tell you that—and also a wonderful imitator of every sound that can be made. The Lyre-bird can imitate all the different notes of other birds, as well as the barking of dogs, the mewing of cats, and the conversation of people.So, when it heard Apollo playing so sweetly on his lyre, it was quite enraptured, and began to imitate it so cleverly that you would have thought there were two Apollos playing on two lyres. All the other birds and creatures were delighted at this—for, of course, two good things are better than only one—but, for some reason or other which I cannot quite explain, Apollo was not nearly so pleased. In fact, he became angry, andsoangry that he threw his lyre at the poor bird who had so appreciated his music, and the lyrehit it on the tail as it ran away and cut it right off. Of course, when the Lyre-bird found that it had no tail it was in a terrible state, and it came to Apollo and said: “It was because I loved your music that I tried to imitate it. I failed, no doubt—for who can sing as Apollo?—but still it is a hard price to have to pay for my admiration.” And when Apollo heard that, he was so sorry for what he had done, and so pleased with the way in which the Lyre-bird had explained things, that he said to it: “Well, I will make amends, and what I give shall be better than what I took away. The lyre which I threw at you, you shall keep, but it shall be of feathers, and even more beautiful than my own. You shall not play on it, for none but myself must do that, but you shall always be a most musical bird, as you are now, and able to imitate any sound that you hear, even my own playing. That power I will not take away from you, I will even increase it, and from this time forth you shall be called the Lyre-bird, in honour of your piety and good taste.”That is how the Lyre-bird got its tail, and why it is, now, a very beautiful, as well as a very musical, bird. But what its tail was like before Apollo gave it the one it has now, that I cannot tell you, for it has never been known to allude to the subject, and it would hardly do to ask it. We onlyknow that it was quite ordinary. But, do you know, Apollo never quite liked the Lyre-bird's imitating him, even though he had told it that it might, and so, not so very long afterwards, he left the country. He went to Greece—it was a very long time ago—and he has not gone back to Australia yet.Now you may be sure that a bird with a tail like that has his playing ground, where he may come and show it to his wife or sweetheart; for it is only the male bird who has it—like the others—though, really, I cannot think what Apollo was about, not to give it to the hen as well, for he was always a very polite god. The Lyre-bird's playground is a small, round hillock—which he makes all himself—and there he will come and walk about, raising his magnificent tail right up into the air, and spreading it out in the most beautiful and graceful way. And, as he does this, he will sing so beautifully, sometimes his own notes, which are very pretty ones, and sometimes those of other birds, all of which he can imitate quite well. But, of course, as Apollo has left Australia, he cannot imitate him any more now, and after such a long time he has forgotten what he learnt, unless, indeed, his own notes are what Apollo used to play. But, if that is the case, he must have left off singing his old song, and I do not think he would have done that.This wonderful bird builds a wonderful nestwith a roof to it, so that he can get right inside it and be quite hidden from sight, tail and all, although he is so large—almost as large as a pheasant, even without counting his tail. As a rule it is only little birds that make nests like that, and not big ones. The Lyre-bird's nest is something like the one that our little wren makes—which perhaps you have seen—only of course ever so much bigger. Only one egg is laid in it, and out of it comes one of the queerest little birds you can imagine, all covered with white, fluffy down, and with no tail at all that you can see, so that you would never think he was going to grow into a Lyre-bird. It takes him four years to get that wonderful tail. Apollo did not mean him to have it, until he was quite grown up—it was not a thing to be entrusted to children.Now you must not think that the Lyre-bird always holds his tail up in the air, for when he walks through the thick bushes he has to carry it as a pheasant does, and I think you know how that is. As soon as he wants to show it to his wife or his sweetheart, up it goes, and oh, itdoeslook so beautiful!But now, if it were not for that promise which your mother is going to make you, there would very soon be no more of these wonderful birds, with their wonderful and beautiful tails, left in Australia, which would mean that there would be none in the wholeworld, for Australia is the only country in the world where they are found. People like much better to see that beautiful tail in their rooms, where it will soon get spoilt and dusty, or to put some feathers of it in their hats, than to know that the bird is running about with it, alive and happy, holding it down like a pheasant's when he walks through the bushes, but raising it in the air when he stands on his little hillock, for the hen Lyre-bird to see, and singing her a song as well. People who live in Australia—and there are a great many people who live there—might often see it doing that if they were to take a little trouble (they take a great deal of trouble to kill it), and, even if they could not see it, they would hear its beautiful song. But they like much better to kill it, so that there may be a little less song and beauty and happiness in the world, and all because of the wicked little demon with the correct suit of clothes. But all this is going to be altered, and you are going to alter it. Just run to your mother, wherever she is—if she is not with you now—and ask her to promise,everso faithfully, never to have anything whatever to do with a hat that has so much as one single feather of a Lyre-bird in it.
Well, I have told you about the Humming-birds and the Birds of Paradise, which are themostbeautiful birds that there are in the world. Now I will tell you about just a few other ones which are very beautiful, although they are not quite so beautiful as those are. One of them is the Cock-of-the-Rock, a bird which lives in South America, where the Humming-birds live. There are three kinds and they are all handsome, but the handsomest,Ithink, is the one that is called the Blood-red Cock-of-the-Rock. It is about the size of a small pigeon, and of the most wonderful blood-red colour you can imagine. You would think, when you saw it first, that it had not one feather on the whole of its body that was not of this brilliant crimson, but, after a little, when your eyes are not so dazzled, you see that its wings and tail are not red but brown. Only, when the wings are shut they are almost quite covered up by the flaming feathers of the back, and just on one part—that part which we should call the shoulders—they are red too. “A scarlet bird! A crimson bird!” that is what you would say first, if you were to see this wonderful Cock-of-the-Rock, and then, all at once, you would cry out, “Oh, but where is his beak? Why, he has no beak!” Yes, and you might almost say, “Where is his head?” for you don't see that either—at least, you only see the back of it, all the rest, and the beak too, is hidden in a wonderful crest of crimson feathers that almost looks like the head itself, only it is a little too big for that. This crest is just the shape of a tea-cosy, so that it looks as if some one had put a little tea-cosy made of the most splendid blood-red, fiery, crimson-sunset feathers right over the bird's head and covered it quite up. You see no beak at all, and itdoeslook so funny to see a bird without a beak—almostas funny as it would to see a beak without a bird.
The two other kinds of Cock-of-the-Rock are very handsome birds, too. One of them has all its plumage orange-coloured, instead of crimson, and the other is of a colour between orange and crimson. So, if you were travelling from one part of South America to another, it would seem as if the same bird was getting brighter and brighter or darker and darker all the way, for the three different kinds do not live in the same parts of the country, but indifferent parts that join each other. Only, of course, you would have to go in the right direction, which would be, first, through the forests of British Guiana, then along the banks of the great river Amazon—which is the largest river in the world—then up the mountains of Peru, and then, still higher, up those of Ecuador. Or, you might start from Ecuador and go all the way to British Guiana. If you get an atlas and look for the map of South America, your mother will soon show you where all these places are.
Now after what you know about the Humming-birds and the Birds of Paradise, you will not be surprised to hear that this brilliant crimson or orange-coloured bird has quite a sober-coloured wife, and that he is as careful to please her, as they are, by showing her his beautiful bright plumage in all the ways in which it looks best; in fact he is so very careful about it that I feel quite sure he pleases himself by doing so, at the same time. You know now that male birds dance, when they show their fine feathers to their wives and sweethearts, for I have told you about the “sácalelis” of the Great Bird of Paradise, and the way in which those other Birds of Paradise danced whilst the two travellers were watching them. But some birds have still more wonderful dances than these; at least they behave in a way that is even more like real dancing.Now the Cock-of-the-Rock is a very fine dancer indeed, and he has a regular place to dance and play in, which we may call his ball-room, or his drawing-room, or his play-ground—whichever name we like best. He chooses it in some part of the forest where it is a little open, and where the ground is soft and mossy, and here, every day, a number of birds assemble, some males and some females; for of course the hen-birds come too, there would be nothing to dance for without them. Then first one of the cocks walks out into the middle of the open space and begins to dance. He flutters and waves his wings, moves his head, with its wonderful crimson tea-cosy, from side to side, and hops about with the queerest little jumpy steps you ever saw. As he goes on he gets more and more excited, springs higher and higher into the air, waves his wings more and more violently, and shakes his head as if he were trying to shake off the tea-cosy, so as to have a cup of tea to refresh himself. All the other birds stand and look at him, criticise his performance, turn their heads towards each other, and make remarks, you may be sure. “How elegant!” exclaims a young hen Cock-of-the-Rock. “What spring! What elasticity! Really he is a very fine performer.” “I have seen finer ones in my time,” says an older hen—in fact quite anelderly bird. “One could judge better, however, if there were some one else to compare him with. He seems to be having it all his own way. Inmytime there was more emulation amongst male birds.” And you may be sure that, as soon as she says that, ever so many other Cocks-of-the-Rock step out into the ring, and there they are, all dancing together, all springing and jumping, all waving their wings, and all trying to shake the tea-cosies off their heads, so as to have a cup of tea for refreshment after all that exercise. Perhaps you will say that that isnonsense, because there is no teapot under the tea-cosy; but remember that no one has ever taken that tea-cosy off. How can you tell what is under a tea-cosy until you take it off. (Your mother will tell you that this is onlyfun.)
COCK-OF-THE-ROCK
COCK-OF-THE-ROCK
COCK-OF-THE-ROCK
But what a strange, curious dance it is, this wonderful bird dance, all in the wild, lonely forest. Oh, how interesting it would be to see it—to find out one of those little, open places where the moss is all pressed smooth and firm, and then to hide somewhere near, and wait there quietly, quietly, without making a sound, all alone in the great, wild, lonely forest, until at last—at last—there is a crimson flash amongst the tree-trunks, and then another and another and another, as bird after bird comes flying or walking to the ball-room, and the dance begins. And sometimes you would see them chasing each other through the forest, all very excited, and often clinging to the trunks of the trees, and spreading and ruffling out their lovely plumage, so as to show it to each other, each one seeming to say, “Ithinkmine is finer than yours;perhapsI may be mistaken, but Ithinkso.” What beautiful birds! and what funny birds, and what interesting things they do whilst they are alive! As soon as they are dead they are not funny or interesting any more, and they are only beautiful as a shawl or a piece of embroidery isbeautiful. It is dead beauty then; the beauty of life—which is the highest beauty of all—is gone out of them.
Now you can see many and many beautiful things that never had life in them, though some, such as beautiful statues and pictures, imitate life so marvellously that you would almost think they were alive. And you can admire these beautiful things, and take pleasure in looking at them, without having to feel sorry that they once were alive and happy, but have been killed for you to look at. Surely you would not wish a beautiful, happy bird to be killed, just for you to look at. You would not even wish it to be put in a cage and kept alive, in a way in which it could not be happy. No, you would rather know that it was alive and happy in its own country, and only imagine what it was like, and how beautiful it was. That is much the best way of seeing creatures, if we have no other way without killing them or putting them in prison—to imagine them; and there is ever so much more pleasure in imagining creatures alive and happy than in seeing them dead or wretched. It is a very fine thing, I can tell you, toimagine, and some people can do it a great deal better than others. Therearepeople who cannot do it at all, but we do not want birds killed forstupidpersons. People who cannot imagine can do capitally without seeing, either—just as well as people whocanimagine, only in another way. Now, just ask your mother to promise not to wear any hat that has the feathers of a beautiful Cock-of-the-Rock in it.
In Australia—oh, but perhaps you want to know why this handsome bird is called the Cock-of-the-Rock, such a very funny name. Well, although it lives in forests and flies about amongst the trees, yet some of these forests are on the sides of mountains, so, of course, there are rocks all about. The Cock-of-the-Rock likes to perch upon a very high one; so, when the old travellers first saw it perched up there, and looking such a fine bird, they called it a Cock-of-the-Rock, and almost expected to hear it crow. At least, if this is not the right explanation, it is the only one I can think of. The Indiansmayhave another one, but if they have I cannot tell it you, because I do not know what it is. Perhaps if I were to think a little, I should know—or else I could imagine it—but I have no time to think or imagine just at present. I want to get on.
In Australia, the great island-continent—the island that is so large that we call it a continent—there is a wonderful bird called the Lyre-bird. It is one of the most wonderful and the most beautiful birds that there is in the world, and all its wonder and all its beauty lies in its tail. This wonderful tail—as I amsure you will guess from the name of the bird—is shaped like a lyre, though it is much more beautiful than any lyre ever was, even the one that Apollo played on. You know, I dare say, what a lyre is, a kind of harp with a very graceful shape, curving first out and then in, and then out again on each side, and with the strings in the centre. Now the Lyre-bird has, on each side of its tail, two beautiful, broad feathers that curve in this way, and are of a pretty chestnut colour, with transparent spaces all the way down. These are the two outer tail feathers, and they are like the two sides of the lyre—the solid part of it which is held in the hand, and which we call the framework. Then, for the strings, which, as you know, are stretched across the hollow space within the framework, not from side to side, but lengthways from one end to the other, the Lyre-bird has a number of most beautiful, thin, graceful feathers, more graceful and delicate than the strings of any harp. Only, instead of being straight, like harp strings, these feathers are curved, and droop over to each side in a most graceful way, and instead of keeping inside the two broad feathers—the sides of the lyre—they come a long way past them, and instead of being only four, which is the number of strings that a lyre has, there are ever so many of them—more than a dozen, I feel sure. And if you could see these feathers, andthe way they are made, oh, you would think them wonderful. You know that on each side of the quill of most feathers there is what is called the web—which we have talked about—and this web is made of a number of little, light, delicate sprays, like miniature feathers, which we call barbs, and these are kept close together by having a lot of little, tiddy-tiny hooks (though such soft little things don't look like hooks a bit), which are called barbules, with which they catch hold of each other, and won't let each other go. That is why the web of a feather—on each side of the quill—is so smooth and even. But, now, in these wonderful feathers of the Lyre-bird, the little delicate things (the barbs) which make the webs are much fewer than in ordinary feathers, and they have no little hooks to catch hold of each other with, and instead of being all together, they are a quarter of an inch apart, and wave about, each by itself, looking like very delicate threads floating from the long slender quill of the feather. And that, too, is how those beautiful plume-feathers of the Birds of Paradise are formed, and you have seen something like it in the long ones of the peacock's tail. The tail of the Lyre-bird is not so grand, perhaps, as that of the peacock, but it is more graceful and delicate, and on the whole, Ithink(for on such points one can never be sure) it is still more wonderful.
But now is it not very strange that any bird should have a tail like that—a tail that is shaped like Apollo's lyre? Well, I will tell you how it happened, for it is one of those things that requires an explanation—and is lucky. Once the great god Apollo (who is the god of music and song) was walking in Australia and playing upon his lyre. Now, I must tell you, at that time—it was a very long time ago—the Lyre-bird had not a tail like it has now, but quite an ordinary one; so, as it is only its tail that isextraordinary, it was quite an ordinary bird. But although it was ordinary in appearance, it was extremely musical, as it is now—I must tell you that—and also a wonderful imitator of every sound that can be made. The Lyre-bird can imitate all the different notes of other birds, as well as the barking of dogs, the mewing of cats, and the conversation of people.
So, when it heard Apollo playing so sweetly on his lyre, it was quite enraptured, and began to imitate it so cleverly that you would have thought there were two Apollos playing on two lyres. All the other birds and creatures were delighted at this—for, of course, two good things are better than only one—but, for some reason or other which I cannot quite explain, Apollo was not nearly so pleased. In fact, he became angry, andsoangry that he threw his lyre at the poor bird who had so appreciated his music, and the lyrehit it on the tail as it ran away and cut it right off. Of course, when the Lyre-bird found that it had no tail it was in a terrible state, and it came to Apollo and said: “It was because I loved your music that I tried to imitate it. I failed, no doubt—for who can sing as Apollo?—but still it is a hard price to have to pay for my admiration.” And when Apollo heard that, he was so sorry for what he had done, and so pleased with the way in which the Lyre-bird had explained things, that he said to it: “Well, I will make amends, and what I give shall be better than what I took away. The lyre which I threw at you, you shall keep, but it shall be of feathers, and even more beautiful than my own. You shall not play on it, for none but myself must do that, but you shall always be a most musical bird, as you are now, and able to imitate any sound that you hear, even my own playing. That power I will not take away from you, I will even increase it, and from this time forth you shall be called the Lyre-bird, in honour of your piety and good taste.”
That is how the Lyre-bird got its tail, and why it is, now, a very beautiful, as well as a very musical, bird. But what its tail was like before Apollo gave it the one it has now, that I cannot tell you, for it has never been known to allude to the subject, and it would hardly do to ask it. We onlyknow that it was quite ordinary. But, do you know, Apollo never quite liked the Lyre-bird's imitating him, even though he had told it that it might, and so, not so very long afterwards, he left the country. He went to Greece—it was a very long time ago—and he has not gone back to Australia yet.
Now you may be sure that a bird with a tail like that has his playing ground, where he may come and show it to his wife or sweetheart; for it is only the male bird who has it—like the others—though, really, I cannot think what Apollo was about, not to give it to the hen as well, for he was always a very polite god. The Lyre-bird's playground is a small, round hillock—which he makes all himself—and there he will come and walk about, raising his magnificent tail right up into the air, and spreading it out in the most beautiful and graceful way. And, as he does this, he will sing so beautifully, sometimes his own notes, which are very pretty ones, and sometimes those of other birds, all of which he can imitate quite well. But, of course, as Apollo has left Australia, he cannot imitate him any more now, and after such a long time he has forgotten what he learnt, unless, indeed, his own notes are what Apollo used to play. But, if that is the case, he must have left off singing his old song, and I do not think he would have done that.
This wonderful bird builds a wonderful nestwith a roof to it, so that he can get right inside it and be quite hidden from sight, tail and all, although he is so large—almost as large as a pheasant, even without counting his tail. As a rule it is only little birds that make nests like that, and not big ones. The Lyre-bird's nest is something like the one that our little wren makes—which perhaps you have seen—only of course ever so much bigger. Only one egg is laid in it, and out of it comes one of the queerest little birds you can imagine, all covered with white, fluffy down, and with no tail at all that you can see, so that you would never think he was going to grow into a Lyre-bird. It takes him four years to get that wonderful tail. Apollo did not mean him to have it, until he was quite grown up—it was not a thing to be entrusted to children.
Now you must not think that the Lyre-bird always holds his tail up in the air, for when he walks through the thick bushes he has to carry it as a pheasant does, and I think you know how that is. As soon as he wants to show it to his wife or his sweetheart, up it goes, and oh, itdoeslook so beautiful!
But now, if it were not for that promise which your mother is going to make you, there would very soon be no more of these wonderful birds, with their wonderful and beautiful tails, left in Australia, which would mean that there would be none in the wholeworld, for Australia is the only country in the world where they are found. People like much better to see that beautiful tail in their rooms, where it will soon get spoilt and dusty, or to put some feathers of it in their hats, than to know that the bird is running about with it, alive and happy, holding it down like a pheasant's when he walks through the bushes, but raising it in the air when he stands on his little hillock, for the hen Lyre-bird to see, and singing her a song as well. People who live in Australia—and there are a great many people who live there—might often see it doing that if they were to take a little trouble (they take a great deal of trouble to kill it), and, even if they could not see it, they would hear its beautiful song. But they like much better to kill it, so that there may be a little less song and beauty and happiness in the world, and all because of the wicked little demon with the correct suit of clothes. But all this is going to be altered, and you are going to alter it. Just run to your mother, wherever she is—if she is not with you now—and ask her to promise,everso faithfully, never to have anything whatever to do with a hat that has so much as one single feather of a Lyre-bird in it.
CHAPTER XIThe Resplendent Trogon and the Argus PheasantOne of the most beautiful birds in the whole world—more beautiful, even, thansomeof the Birds of Paradise and thansomeof the Humming-birds, even those that are not hermits—is the lovely Trogon of Mexico. But first I must tell you that there are a great many birds called Trogons that live in other parts of America as well as in Mexico, and in other parts of the world as well as in America. But the most beautiful of all of them—which is the only one I shall have time to tell you about—is the Resplendent Trogon or Quezal—for that is what the Indians call it—and it is only found in Mexico, which, you know, is in North America, only right down at the southern end of it, where there are a good many Humming-birds too. There are many more Humming-birds in South America than in North America. It is the hot, tropical countries they are so fond of. You see they like to be with their brothers the sunbeams.This Mexico is such an interesting country. It belongs, now, to the Spaniards, whom I dare say you have heard about, but once it belonged to a quite different people, an old people who had been there for hundreds and hundreds of years, long before Columbus discovered America. These people were civilised, only in a different way to ourselves. They did not wear the kind of clothes that we do, but only light linen things, dyed all sorts of colours, which were prettier and suited the climate. They had many cities, as we have, though they were built in a different way, and the largest was built all over a great lake, with bridges going from one side of it to another. One can build houses in the water, you know, for there is Venice in Italy, and Rotterdam in Holland, which are both built in the sea, and which your mother will tell you about.These people, who were called Aztecs, were very clever workmen, and such wonderful goldsmiths and silversmiths, especially, that they used to make imitation gardens, with all sorts of flowers beaten out of gold and silver. Then they used feathers as we do a paint-box, to make pictures of things with. They would paint houses and ships and men and boats and landscapes with them, putting the right-coloured feathers just where they were wanted, blue ones for the sky, green ones for the grass, and so on. For thewicked little demon knew of those people just as well as he knows of us, and he had taught them to kill birds, too. Only as they had no guns they could not kill nearly so many of them as we can, so that there was no danger, then, of a beautiful bird getting rarer and rarer, until, at last, it is not to be found in the world any more, which is what happens now with us—at least it will ifyoudo not stop it. But though it would have been much better to let these birds—which were often Humming-birds—go on living and flying about, and though no picture made with their feathers was nearly so beautiful as the feathers themselves were, growing upon them, yet these feather-pictures of the old Aztecs were very wonderful things, and it is a great pity that there are none of them left now, for us to look at. Nothing could bring the poor birds back to life, so we might just as well have had the pictures that they had helped to make.And we might have had some other pictures, too, that these people made, for they used to draw things, just as we do, and when they wanted to describe a thing they would often draw a picture of it, instead of onlysayingwhat it was like. Even their writing was all in pictures, for when they wanted to write—say the word “sun” or the word “house”—they would draw a little picture of the sun or of a house, only so quickly and with such a few strokes of the pen or the paint-brush (Idon't quite know which it was), that it was quite like proper writing. Of course there are some words that are not so easy to make a picture of—as you can try for yourself—but, wherever it could be done, these old Aztecs would do it. And if only we had some more of this writing (for we have very little of it), we should be able to know a great deal more about this old people, who were in America before Columbus came there, and what they did and what they thought about, and the remarks they made to each other, and just think how interesting that would be. It is always interesting to know something about people quite different to ourselves who lived a long time ago.Unfortunately, when the Spaniards had conquered these people, instead of keeping the things which they had made, they burnt them. They burnt their houses, their temples, their cities, their picture-writings, their feather-pictures, their wonderful flowers—until the gold and silver they were made of were quite melted—their clothes, everything—even the people themselves—and, to save time, they often burnt the two last together. It is a great pity they did this, but, you see, everybody has a plan of doing things, and the plan of the Spaniards was to burn the people they conquered, and everything belonging to them. But was it not horribly cruel? Oh! most horribly; but so it is to shoot sea-gulls, and then to cut off theirwings, before they are dead, and throw them back into the sea, to drown there or bleed to death. That is whatwedo, anditis horribly cruel, too. So do not let us think about the cruel things the Spaniards did—yet. Let us think, first, about the cruel things that are done by people in our own country, and try to stopthem.Whenwe have stopped them—allof them—then we can think about the Spaniards—and some other nations.You know there is a proverb which says, “Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones;” that is generally one of the first proverbs we learn, andalwaysthe very first one we forget. I am afraid that those old Aztecs lived inrathera glass house, fortheyhad a plan of cutting people open, whilst they were still alive, and tearing their hearts out. Horrible! was it not? But they did notburnpeople; so, when they saw the Spaniards doing so, they were shocked at them. As for the Spaniards,theywere shocked at the Aztecs doing this other thing, forthathad never beentheircustom. So the Aztecs and the Spaniards were shocked at each other. People are very easily shocked at each other, but they are not nearly so easily shocked at themselves. Now I come to think of it, I never remember hearing any one say, “I amshockedat myself!” And yet it would often be a quite sensible remark.But what I wanted to tell you about these old Aztecs, who lived in Mexico all that time ago, was that, when the Spaniards came there, they were ruled over by a great king named Montezuma, and this king, amongst many other wonderful things, had a great place, where he kept all the different kinds of birds that were found in his country. A place like that is called an aviary, and you may be quite sure that the beautiful Trogon or Quezal was one of the birds in King Montezuma's aviary, for it was more highly thought of than any other bird in the country. Let us hope that all the birds in this aviary had nice, large places to be in, with trees, and flowers, and everything that they wanted; and, as it was a king's aviary, I daresay they had.Well, now, I will tell you what this beautiful bird, the Quezal or Resplendent Trogon, that used to be in King Montezuma's aviary, is like. It is about the size of a turtle-dove, but with the most beautiful, long, curling feathers in its tail, and these beautiful feathers, and all the feathers on its back and breast and on its head, too, are of the most lovely, rich, golden-green colour. Really I don't know whether there is more of gold or of green in them, but there is just the right quantity of each to make them the most beautiful, beautiful feathers you can possibly imagine. It is the tail-feathersthat are the most beautiful, for they are so very long—the two longest are much longer than those in a pheasant's tail—but there are some feathers which begin on the back and lap softly round the sides, one a little way off from the other, so that you see their pretty shapes, and these are almost as beautiful, although they are ever so much shorter. But now there is something funny about those long feathers, which I have called the tail-feathers, and that is, that they are notreallytail-feathers at all. They look as if they were, butreallythey are feathers which gooverthe tail and cover it up, so that therealtail is underneath them. It is like that—though I am sure you never knew it—with the peacock; those beautiful, long feathers which wecallthe tail are notreallythe tail, and you will see that, directly, if you watch a peacock when he spreads them out, for, as soon as he does, you will see the real tail underneath, which is nothing very particular to look at. Still, in both these birds the long feathers look so like the real tail that we may very well call them the tail-feathers, and we can always explain about it afterwards, to show how much we know. And, do you know, these beautiful, long, golden-green feathers of the Quezal, which we are going to call the tail-feathers, although we know very well they are not, were sohighly valued by these people who used to live in Mexico, that no one was ever allowed to kill the bird, but only to catch it and cut them off and let it go again, so that new ones might grow on it. And only the chiefs were allowed to wear its feathers. And, indeed, there would be no great harm in wearing feathers in hats, if we got them only in that way. Only I cannot think what the little demon could have been about in that country. A law like that must have made him very angry indeed.Then, besides his splendid tail-feathers, this beautiful bird has a crest on his head, which is something like the one the Cock-of-the-Rock has on his, for it is of the same tea-cosy shape, only it is green instead of crimson, and it does not quite cover up the beak. So perhaps you will think that, as the Cock-of-the-Rock is all blood-red, with a tea-cosy crest on his head, this beautiful golden-green Trogon, with the tea-cosy crest onhishead, is all golden-green. But no, all the lower part of him—that part which is hidden when he sits down—instead of being golden-green, is the most splendid vermilion, as bright a colour—although it is not quite the same—as the Cock-of-the-Rock's himself. Just think, golden-green and splendidly bright vermilion! and you cannot think how beautiful the one looks against the other. Whether they would look quiteso well together in a dressIam not quite sure, but your mother would know all about that. Only you must remember thatsucha golden-green andsucha vermilion as this Trogon has were never seen together—no, or separately either—in any dress yet.THE RESPLENDENT TROGONThese beautiful Quezals live in the forests of Mexico, and they like to sit lazily on the branch of a tree, and let their beautiful long tails (which we know are notreallytails) hang down underneath it, like the “funny feathers” of the Birds of Paradise. At least the male birds like to do that, because the female Quezals have not got those beautiful, long feathers, although they are very fine birds even without them. They are not so handsome as the males, but they are not plain like the female Humming-birds or Birds of Paradise. Perhaps the male Quezals show off their fine feathers to the females by letting them hang down like that, because, of course, long, soft, drooping feathers, such as they have, would not stand up in the air, like those of the peacock or of the Lyre-bird. But very likely they have some other nice way of showing them.Now, although the Quezal or Resplendent Trogon is such a magnificent bird, he is not so very often seen. It is difficult to find him in the dense forest, and I wish it was still more difficult than it is, forwhen heisfound, he is always shot for those beautiful feathers of his. When the Indian who is looking for him sees him sitting in the way I have told you, he hides somewhere near and imitates the cry of the bird. When the poor Trogon hears it, he thinks it is another Trogon—a friend of his, perhaps—and so he comes flying to where the sound came from. Then this deceitful man—and I really think it isverycontemptible to deceive a bird in that way—shoots him, and there is one beautiful, happy bird less in the world. Is it not dreadful to think of, that in almost every part of the world there are someverybeautiful birds to be found, and everywhere they are being killed and killed and killed, so that they are getting scarcer and scarcer every year? If it were not for what your mother has promised you about the Lyre-bird, and what she is going to promise you about this Trogon, there would soon be no more beautiful Lyre-birds in Australia, and no more beautiful Trogons in Mexico. How terrible that would be! But we have saved the beautiful Lyre-bird, and now we are going to save the beautiful Trogon. Ask your mother—oh,doask her—to promise, mostfaithfully, never to have anything whatever to do with a hat that has any of the feathers—short or long, golden-green or vermilion—of a Quezal—a Resplendent Trogon—in it. Ah, now she has promised, and we havesaved that beautiful bird as well as a great many others.Now I will tell you about a very beautiful pheasant—the Argus Pheasant. Some people may think him the most beautiful one of all. And yet he is not the most showy pheasant—for the pheasants, you know, are very showy birds indeed. There is the Golden Pheasant, who is dressed in the sun's own livery; and the Silver Pheasant, who has a silver white one which is more like the moon's, but who looks gaudy and smart all the same; and the Amherst Pheasant, who manages to be handsomer than both the sun and moon—which is very clever of him; and the Fire-back, who is all in a blaze without minding it at all; and the Impeyan or Monal, who looks as if he was made of beaten metal, and had just been polished up with a piece of wash-leather. There is the Peacock, too—for he is really nothing but a large pheasant—so, you see, the pheasants are a handsome family, and you may be sure that they know how to appreciate themselves. The pheasant that we are going to talk about is quite a large bird, not so large as the peacock, it is true, but with still longer tail-feathers, and oh, such wonderful wings! One may say, indeed, that this bird is all wings and tail, but he is principally wings, at least when he spreads them out. But, even when they are folded, they are so verylarge that he looks quite wrapped up in them; and I think he is, too, partly because of that, but still more because they are so very handsome.So, first, I will tell you what these large, handsome wings of his are like. Well, in each one there are twenty-five or twenty-six very fine long feathers, but these feathers are not all so fine or so long as each other. Ten of them are about a foot long, and these are prettily marked and mottled with all sorts of pretty brown colours, whilst, down the centre of each one, there is a pretty blue stripe. It is the quill of the feather that makes that stripe, for it is blue, and looks as if it had been painted. So you see even these are pretty feathers, but it is the fifteen or sixteen other ones that are so very beautiful. They are much broader and longer than the other ten—the longest are more than twice as long—and down each of them, just on one side of the great quill in the centre, there is a row of such wonderful spots. They are as large as horse-chestnuts (big ones I mean), and what they look like is a cup and ball, the ball just lying in the cup ready to be sent up; only, of course, the cup has no handle to it—you must not think that—for the spots are round. And, do you know, the balls look as if they werereallyballs, so that you would think you could take them in your hand, and throw them up into the air, and catch themagain as they came down. They do not look flat at all. You know, when you try to draw an orange or an apple, how difficult it is not to make it look flat like a penny.You wouldmake it look flat, I know, but these wonderful balls on the Argus Pheasant's feathers look as if they had all been drawn by a very clever artist (as indeed they have been—averyclever one), who had shaded them properly; you know how difficult shading is. There are eighteen or twenty—sometimes as many as twenty-two—of these wonderful spots on each feather, but I have not told you, yet, of what colour they are. Perhaps you will think they are very bright and dazzling. No, they are not like that at all. They are soft, not bright, and their softness is their beauty. All round them, at the edge, there is a ring of deep, soft brown, and, just inside the ring, there is a lighter brown, and it goes on getting lighter and lighter, until, in the centre, it is a pretty, soft amber, and, at the edge of the soft amber, there is a pretty, white, silvery light, as if the moon was just coming out from behind an amber cloud.Sopretty! And when the Argus Pheasant spreads his wonderful wings out, you can see more than a hundred of these wonderful spots on each wing, which is more than two hundred altogether. Such a sight! so soft and so pretty they look. Shall I tell you what such wings are like?They are like skies where the stars are all moons, that float softly among soft brown and amber clouds, tipping them all with soft silver. For the Argus Pheasant is not one of the very brilliant birds of the world. No, he is not brilliant at all. His colours are only soft browns and soft ambers and soft, silver whites, and yet he is so pretty, so beautiful. I think he is as pretty as the peacock, and, when one sees him after the peacock, it is a rest for the eye. Some people might prefer him to the peacock. Do you wonder at that? It is not so very wonderful. There may be a little girl reading this, with soft brown hair and soft brown eyes, and with nothing golden or gleaming about her, and some people, besides her father and mother, may think her prettier than the little girl who is all golden and gleaming. It is all a matter of taste. Some like a broad sheet of water dancing in the sunlight, and some like quiet streams running under cool, mossy banks, with trees arching above them, where the shadows are cool and deep, and where even the sun's peepings are only like brighter shadows. People who like that better than the other, will like the quiet little girl with the brown hair better than the one who gleams and dazzles; and they will like the Argus Pheasant better than the peacock, and think them both a rest for the eye. It is not at all a bad thing to be a rest for the eye.THE ARGUS PHEASANTI have told you how large the wings of the Argus Pheasant are; when he spreads them out to show to the hen bird (who has nothing like them), they look like two banners or two beautiful feather-fans, the kind of fans that you see Eastern queens being fanned with, in the pictures. Then he has a very fine tail as well, as I told you. Two of the feathers in it are very long indeed—quite four feet long, I should think—and as broad as a man's hand, if not broader, near the base (which means where they begin), but getting gradually narrower towards the tips. On one side, these feathers are a soft, rich brown, with silver-white spots, and, on the other, a soft, silver grey, with silver-white spots. When the Argus Pheasant spreads out his two great wings, he takes care to lift up his fine handsome tail, as well, so that the two long feathers of it are quite high in the air. So there is his tail going up like a rocket, whilst his wings spread out on each side of it, like feather-fans, and his head comes out between them, just in the middle, and makes a polite bow to the hen. That is the right way to do it, and the Argus Pheasant would rather not do it at all than not do it properly. Oh, he takes a great deal of trouble about it, and all for the hen—which is unselfish.This beautiful Argus Pheasant lives in Sumatra—which is a large island of the Malay Archipelago—and also in the Malay Peninsula and Siam, which are, both, part of the great Asiatic continent—as perhaps you know. Yes, that is where he lives, but you might walk about there for a very long time, without ever once seeing him, for the Argus Pheasant is a very difficult bird to find. He lives in the great, thick forests, and keeps out of everybody's way. One hardly ever does findhim, but, sometimes, one finds his drawing-room (for he has one, like the Cock-of-the-Rock and the Lyre-bird), and if one waits there long enough (Iwould wait a week if it were necessary) one may see him come into it. He spends almost all his time in looking after this drawing-room, and he only sees the hen Argus Pheasant when she comes there too, to look at him. Of course he dances in it, and it is there that he spreads out his wonderful wings and lifts up his tail, in the way that I have told you. The Argus Pheasant is very proud of his drawing-room, and hewillhave it nice and clean, with nothing lying about in it. So, if he finds anything there that has no business to be there, he picks it up with his beak, and throws it outside. He has not to open a door to do that; his drawing-room is only an open space which he keeps nice and smooth, so, as it is always open, it does not want a door to it. Now I think you will say—and I amsureyour mother will agree with you—that theArgus Pheasant does quite right to act in this way, and that to keep one's drawing-room clean and tidy is a very proper thing to do. Your mother may be surprised, perhaps, that it is the male Argus Pheasant, and not the hen bird, that does it, but I am sure she will not blamehimon that account. But I am sorry to say that the wicked little demon has found out a way of making this habit of the poor bird's—which is such a good one—a means of killing him.The people who live in that part of the world—those yellow people called Malays that I have told you of—know all about the ways of the Argus Pheasant, and how he willnothave things lying about in his drawing-room. Now there is a great tall reed that grows there, called the bamboo, which I am sure you have heard of, and which your mother will tell you all about. The Malays cut off a piece of this bamboo, about two feet long, and then they shave it down—all except about six inches at one end of it—till it is almost as thin as writing paper. It looks like a piece of ribbon then, only, as it is very hard, as well as thin, its edges are quite sharp, and able to cut like a razor. But the piece at the end, which has been left and not shaved down, they cut into a point, so that it makes a peg, and this peg, that has a ribbon at the end of it, they stick into the ground, right in the middle of the Argus Pheasant'sdrawing-room. So, when the poor Argus Pheasant comes into his drawing-room, he sees something lying on the floor, which has no business to be there. It may be only a ribbon, but that is not the right place for it, so he tries to pick it up and throw it outside. But it won't come, however much he pulls it, for the peg at the end is fixed in the ground, and he is not strong enough to pull it out. At last he gets angry and thinks he will make a great effort. He twists the long ribbon round and round his neck—just as you would twist a piece of string round and round your hand if you were going to pull it hard—then takes hold of it with his beak, just above the ground, and gives quite a tremendous spring backwards. You may guess what happens. The long peg does not come out of the ground, but the ribbon is drawn quite tight round the poor bird's own neck, and the sharp edges almost cut his head off.Now is notthata most cruel trick to play upon a bird who only wants to keep his drawing-room in proper order? How would your dear mother like to be treated in such a way for beingneatandtidy, which I am sure she is? But we are going to stop it—this cruel trick of the wicked little demon—for it was he who thought of it and taught it to the Malays. It is nottheirfault, you must not be angry with them,any more than with the poor women whose hearts the same demon has frozen. We are going to stop it, and you know how. The Malay only kills the poor Argus Pheasant to sell his feathers. Iftheywere not wanted he would leave him alone, to be happy and beautiful, and to dance in a nice tidy drawing-room. So just ask your mother to promise never to wear a hat—or anything else—that has a feather, or even a little piece of a feather, of an Argus Pheasant in it.That was going to be the end of the chapter, but there is just something which I have forgotten. I am sure you will have been wondering why this beautiful pheasant is called the Argus Pheasant, and what the word Argus means. Well, I will give you an explanation. Argus was the name of a wonderful being—a kind of monster—who had a hundred eyes, and who lived a long time ago. But he offended the great god Jupiter, who had him killed, and then Jupiter's wife—the goddess Juno—whose servant he was, put all his eyes into the tail of the peacock—for the peacock was her favourite bird. That is one story; but another one says that she didnotput themallthere, but only the bright ones. The soft ones—those pretty ones that I have been telling you about—she put into the wings of another bird, that she liked quite as well, if not better, and that bird became, at once, the Argus Pheasant. But now if Argus hadonly a hundred eyes, how is it that there are two hundred, or more, in the wings of the Argus Pheasant, to say nothing of those in the tail of the peacock? That shows,Ithink, quite clearly that he must, really, have had a great many more; and so, now, when people talk to you of Argus and his hundred eyes, you can say, “A hundred, indeed! Why, he must have hadthreehundred at the very least.” And then you can tell them why.
One of the most beautiful birds in the whole world—more beautiful, even, thansomeof the Birds of Paradise and thansomeof the Humming-birds, even those that are not hermits—is the lovely Trogon of Mexico. But first I must tell you that there are a great many birds called Trogons that live in other parts of America as well as in Mexico, and in other parts of the world as well as in America. But the most beautiful of all of them—which is the only one I shall have time to tell you about—is the Resplendent Trogon or Quezal—for that is what the Indians call it—and it is only found in Mexico, which, you know, is in North America, only right down at the southern end of it, where there are a good many Humming-birds too. There are many more Humming-birds in South America than in North America. It is the hot, tropical countries they are so fond of. You see they like to be with their brothers the sunbeams.
This Mexico is such an interesting country. It belongs, now, to the Spaniards, whom I dare say you have heard about, but once it belonged to a quite different people, an old people who had been there for hundreds and hundreds of years, long before Columbus discovered America. These people were civilised, only in a different way to ourselves. They did not wear the kind of clothes that we do, but only light linen things, dyed all sorts of colours, which were prettier and suited the climate. They had many cities, as we have, though they were built in a different way, and the largest was built all over a great lake, with bridges going from one side of it to another. One can build houses in the water, you know, for there is Venice in Italy, and Rotterdam in Holland, which are both built in the sea, and which your mother will tell you about.
These people, who were called Aztecs, were very clever workmen, and such wonderful goldsmiths and silversmiths, especially, that they used to make imitation gardens, with all sorts of flowers beaten out of gold and silver. Then they used feathers as we do a paint-box, to make pictures of things with. They would paint houses and ships and men and boats and landscapes with them, putting the right-coloured feathers just where they were wanted, blue ones for the sky, green ones for the grass, and so on. For thewicked little demon knew of those people just as well as he knows of us, and he had taught them to kill birds, too. Only as they had no guns they could not kill nearly so many of them as we can, so that there was no danger, then, of a beautiful bird getting rarer and rarer, until, at last, it is not to be found in the world any more, which is what happens now with us—at least it will ifyoudo not stop it. But though it would have been much better to let these birds—which were often Humming-birds—go on living and flying about, and though no picture made with their feathers was nearly so beautiful as the feathers themselves were, growing upon them, yet these feather-pictures of the old Aztecs were very wonderful things, and it is a great pity that there are none of them left now, for us to look at. Nothing could bring the poor birds back to life, so we might just as well have had the pictures that they had helped to make.
And we might have had some other pictures, too, that these people made, for they used to draw things, just as we do, and when they wanted to describe a thing they would often draw a picture of it, instead of onlysayingwhat it was like. Even their writing was all in pictures, for when they wanted to write—say the word “sun” or the word “house”—they would draw a little picture of the sun or of a house, only so quickly and with such a few strokes of the pen or the paint-brush (Idon't quite know which it was), that it was quite like proper writing. Of course there are some words that are not so easy to make a picture of—as you can try for yourself—but, wherever it could be done, these old Aztecs would do it. And if only we had some more of this writing (for we have very little of it), we should be able to know a great deal more about this old people, who were in America before Columbus came there, and what they did and what they thought about, and the remarks they made to each other, and just think how interesting that would be. It is always interesting to know something about people quite different to ourselves who lived a long time ago.
Unfortunately, when the Spaniards had conquered these people, instead of keeping the things which they had made, they burnt them. They burnt their houses, their temples, their cities, their picture-writings, their feather-pictures, their wonderful flowers—until the gold and silver they were made of were quite melted—their clothes, everything—even the people themselves—and, to save time, they often burnt the two last together. It is a great pity they did this, but, you see, everybody has a plan of doing things, and the plan of the Spaniards was to burn the people they conquered, and everything belonging to them. But was it not horribly cruel? Oh! most horribly; but so it is to shoot sea-gulls, and then to cut off theirwings, before they are dead, and throw them back into the sea, to drown there or bleed to death. That is whatwedo, anditis horribly cruel, too. So do not let us think about the cruel things the Spaniards did—yet. Let us think, first, about the cruel things that are done by people in our own country, and try to stopthem.Whenwe have stopped them—allof them—then we can think about the Spaniards—and some other nations.
You know there is a proverb which says, “Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones;” that is generally one of the first proverbs we learn, andalwaysthe very first one we forget. I am afraid that those old Aztecs lived inrathera glass house, fortheyhad a plan of cutting people open, whilst they were still alive, and tearing their hearts out. Horrible! was it not? But they did notburnpeople; so, when they saw the Spaniards doing so, they were shocked at them. As for the Spaniards,theywere shocked at the Aztecs doing this other thing, forthathad never beentheircustom. So the Aztecs and the Spaniards were shocked at each other. People are very easily shocked at each other, but they are not nearly so easily shocked at themselves. Now I come to think of it, I never remember hearing any one say, “I amshockedat myself!” And yet it would often be a quite sensible remark.
But what I wanted to tell you about these old Aztecs, who lived in Mexico all that time ago, was that, when the Spaniards came there, they were ruled over by a great king named Montezuma, and this king, amongst many other wonderful things, had a great place, where he kept all the different kinds of birds that were found in his country. A place like that is called an aviary, and you may be quite sure that the beautiful Trogon or Quezal was one of the birds in King Montezuma's aviary, for it was more highly thought of than any other bird in the country. Let us hope that all the birds in this aviary had nice, large places to be in, with trees, and flowers, and everything that they wanted; and, as it was a king's aviary, I daresay they had.
Well, now, I will tell you what this beautiful bird, the Quezal or Resplendent Trogon, that used to be in King Montezuma's aviary, is like. It is about the size of a turtle-dove, but with the most beautiful, long, curling feathers in its tail, and these beautiful feathers, and all the feathers on its back and breast and on its head, too, are of the most lovely, rich, golden-green colour. Really I don't know whether there is more of gold or of green in them, but there is just the right quantity of each to make them the most beautiful, beautiful feathers you can possibly imagine. It is the tail-feathersthat are the most beautiful, for they are so very long—the two longest are much longer than those in a pheasant's tail—but there are some feathers which begin on the back and lap softly round the sides, one a little way off from the other, so that you see their pretty shapes, and these are almost as beautiful, although they are ever so much shorter. But now there is something funny about those long feathers, which I have called the tail-feathers, and that is, that they are notreallytail-feathers at all. They look as if they were, butreallythey are feathers which gooverthe tail and cover it up, so that therealtail is underneath them. It is like that—though I am sure you never knew it—with the peacock; those beautiful, long feathers which wecallthe tail are notreallythe tail, and you will see that, directly, if you watch a peacock when he spreads them out, for, as soon as he does, you will see the real tail underneath, which is nothing very particular to look at. Still, in both these birds the long feathers look so like the real tail that we may very well call them the tail-feathers, and we can always explain about it afterwards, to show how much we know. And, do you know, these beautiful, long, golden-green feathers of the Quezal, which we are going to call the tail-feathers, although we know very well they are not, were sohighly valued by these people who used to live in Mexico, that no one was ever allowed to kill the bird, but only to catch it and cut them off and let it go again, so that new ones might grow on it. And only the chiefs were allowed to wear its feathers. And, indeed, there would be no great harm in wearing feathers in hats, if we got them only in that way. Only I cannot think what the little demon could have been about in that country. A law like that must have made him very angry indeed.
Then, besides his splendid tail-feathers, this beautiful bird has a crest on his head, which is something like the one the Cock-of-the-Rock has on his, for it is of the same tea-cosy shape, only it is green instead of crimson, and it does not quite cover up the beak. So perhaps you will think that, as the Cock-of-the-Rock is all blood-red, with a tea-cosy crest on his head, this beautiful golden-green Trogon, with the tea-cosy crest onhishead, is all golden-green. But no, all the lower part of him—that part which is hidden when he sits down—instead of being golden-green, is the most splendid vermilion, as bright a colour—although it is not quite the same—as the Cock-of-the-Rock's himself. Just think, golden-green and splendidly bright vermilion! and you cannot think how beautiful the one looks against the other. Whether they would look quiteso well together in a dressIam not quite sure, but your mother would know all about that. Only you must remember thatsucha golden-green andsucha vermilion as this Trogon has were never seen together—no, or separately either—in any dress yet.
THE RESPLENDENT TROGON
THE RESPLENDENT TROGON
THE RESPLENDENT TROGON
These beautiful Quezals live in the forests of Mexico, and they like to sit lazily on the branch of a tree, and let their beautiful long tails (which we know are notreallytails) hang down underneath it, like the “funny feathers” of the Birds of Paradise. At least the male birds like to do that, because the female Quezals have not got those beautiful, long feathers, although they are very fine birds even without them. They are not so handsome as the males, but they are not plain like the female Humming-birds or Birds of Paradise. Perhaps the male Quezals show off their fine feathers to the females by letting them hang down like that, because, of course, long, soft, drooping feathers, such as they have, would not stand up in the air, like those of the peacock or of the Lyre-bird. But very likely they have some other nice way of showing them.
Now, although the Quezal or Resplendent Trogon is such a magnificent bird, he is not so very often seen. It is difficult to find him in the dense forest, and I wish it was still more difficult than it is, forwhen heisfound, he is always shot for those beautiful feathers of his. When the Indian who is looking for him sees him sitting in the way I have told you, he hides somewhere near and imitates the cry of the bird. When the poor Trogon hears it, he thinks it is another Trogon—a friend of his, perhaps—and so he comes flying to where the sound came from. Then this deceitful man—and I really think it isverycontemptible to deceive a bird in that way—shoots him, and there is one beautiful, happy bird less in the world. Is it not dreadful to think of, that in almost every part of the world there are someverybeautiful birds to be found, and everywhere they are being killed and killed and killed, so that they are getting scarcer and scarcer every year? If it were not for what your mother has promised you about the Lyre-bird, and what she is going to promise you about this Trogon, there would soon be no more beautiful Lyre-birds in Australia, and no more beautiful Trogons in Mexico. How terrible that would be! But we have saved the beautiful Lyre-bird, and now we are going to save the beautiful Trogon. Ask your mother—oh,doask her—to promise, mostfaithfully, never to have anything whatever to do with a hat that has any of the feathers—short or long, golden-green or vermilion—of a Quezal—a Resplendent Trogon—in it. Ah, now she has promised, and we havesaved that beautiful bird as well as a great many others.
Now I will tell you about a very beautiful pheasant—the Argus Pheasant. Some people may think him the most beautiful one of all. And yet he is not the most showy pheasant—for the pheasants, you know, are very showy birds indeed. There is the Golden Pheasant, who is dressed in the sun's own livery; and the Silver Pheasant, who has a silver white one which is more like the moon's, but who looks gaudy and smart all the same; and the Amherst Pheasant, who manages to be handsomer than both the sun and moon—which is very clever of him; and the Fire-back, who is all in a blaze without minding it at all; and the Impeyan or Monal, who looks as if he was made of beaten metal, and had just been polished up with a piece of wash-leather. There is the Peacock, too—for he is really nothing but a large pheasant—so, you see, the pheasants are a handsome family, and you may be sure that they know how to appreciate themselves. The pheasant that we are going to talk about is quite a large bird, not so large as the peacock, it is true, but with still longer tail-feathers, and oh, such wonderful wings! One may say, indeed, that this bird is all wings and tail, but he is principally wings, at least when he spreads them out. But, even when they are folded, they are so verylarge that he looks quite wrapped up in them; and I think he is, too, partly because of that, but still more because they are so very handsome.
So, first, I will tell you what these large, handsome wings of his are like. Well, in each one there are twenty-five or twenty-six very fine long feathers, but these feathers are not all so fine or so long as each other. Ten of them are about a foot long, and these are prettily marked and mottled with all sorts of pretty brown colours, whilst, down the centre of each one, there is a pretty blue stripe. It is the quill of the feather that makes that stripe, for it is blue, and looks as if it had been painted. So you see even these are pretty feathers, but it is the fifteen or sixteen other ones that are so very beautiful. They are much broader and longer than the other ten—the longest are more than twice as long—and down each of them, just on one side of the great quill in the centre, there is a row of such wonderful spots. They are as large as horse-chestnuts (big ones I mean), and what they look like is a cup and ball, the ball just lying in the cup ready to be sent up; only, of course, the cup has no handle to it—you must not think that—for the spots are round. And, do you know, the balls look as if they werereallyballs, so that you would think you could take them in your hand, and throw them up into the air, and catch themagain as they came down. They do not look flat at all. You know, when you try to draw an orange or an apple, how difficult it is not to make it look flat like a penny.You wouldmake it look flat, I know, but these wonderful balls on the Argus Pheasant's feathers look as if they had all been drawn by a very clever artist (as indeed they have been—averyclever one), who had shaded them properly; you know how difficult shading is. There are eighteen or twenty—sometimes as many as twenty-two—of these wonderful spots on each feather, but I have not told you, yet, of what colour they are. Perhaps you will think they are very bright and dazzling. No, they are not like that at all. They are soft, not bright, and their softness is their beauty. All round them, at the edge, there is a ring of deep, soft brown, and, just inside the ring, there is a lighter brown, and it goes on getting lighter and lighter, until, in the centre, it is a pretty, soft amber, and, at the edge of the soft amber, there is a pretty, white, silvery light, as if the moon was just coming out from behind an amber cloud.Sopretty! And when the Argus Pheasant spreads his wonderful wings out, you can see more than a hundred of these wonderful spots on each wing, which is more than two hundred altogether. Such a sight! so soft and so pretty they look. Shall I tell you what such wings are like?They are like skies where the stars are all moons, that float softly among soft brown and amber clouds, tipping them all with soft silver. For the Argus Pheasant is not one of the very brilliant birds of the world. No, he is not brilliant at all. His colours are only soft browns and soft ambers and soft, silver whites, and yet he is so pretty, so beautiful. I think he is as pretty as the peacock, and, when one sees him after the peacock, it is a rest for the eye. Some people might prefer him to the peacock. Do you wonder at that? It is not so very wonderful. There may be a little girl reading this, with soft brown hair and soft brown eyes, and with nothing golden or gleaming about her, and some people, besides her father and mother, may think her prettier than the little girl who is all golden and gleaming. It is all a matter of taste. Some like a broad sheet of water dancing in the sunlight, and some like quiet streams running under cool, mossy banks, with trees arching above them, where the shadows are cool and deep, and where even the sun's peepings are only like brighter shadows. People who like that better than the other, will like the quiet little girl with the brown hair better than the one who gleams and dazzles; and they will like the Argus Pheasant better than the peacock, and think them both a rest for the eye. It is not at all a bad thing to be a rest for the eye.
THE ARGUS PHEASANT
THE ARGUS PHEASANT
THE ARGUS PHEASANT
I have told you how large the wings of the Argus Pheasant are; when he spreads them out to show to the hen bird (who has nothing like them), they look like two banners or two beautiful feather-fans, the kind of fans that you see Eastern queens being fanned with, in the pictures. Then he has a very fine tail as well, as I told you. Two of the feathers in it are very long indeed—quite four feet long, I should think—and as broad as a man's hand, if not broader, near the base (which means where they begin), but getting gradually narrower towards the tips. On one side, these feathers are a soft, rich brown, with silver-white spots, and, on the other, a soft, silver grey, with silver-white spots. When the Argus Pheasant spreads out his two great wings, he takes care to lift up his fine handsome tail, as well, so that the two long feathers of it are quite high in the air. So there is his tail going up like a rocket, whilst his wings spread out on each side of it, like feather-fans, and his head comes out between them, just in the middle, and makes a polite bow to the hen. That is the right way to do it, and the Argus Pheasant would rather not do it at all than not do it properly. Oh, he takes a great deal of trouble about it, and all for the hen—which is unselfish.
This beautiful Argus Pheasant lives in Sumatra—which is a large island of the Malay Archipelago—and also in the Malay Peninsula and Siam, which are, both, part of the great Asiatic continent—as perhaps you know. Yes, that is where he lives, but you might walk about there for a very long time, without ever once seeing him, for the Argus Pheasant is a very difficult bird to find. He lives in the great, thick forests, and keeps out of everybody's way. One hardly ever does findhim, but, sometimes, one finds his drawing-room (for he has one, like the Cock-of-the-Rock and the Lyre-bird), and if one waits there long enough (Iwould wait a week if it were necessary) one may see him come into it. He spends almost all his time in looking after this drawing-room, and he only sees the hen Argus Pheasant when she comes there too, to look at him. Of course he dances in it, and it is there that he spreads out his wonderful wings and lifts up his tail, in the way that I have told you. The Argus Pheasant is very proud of his drawing-room, and hewillhave it nice and clean, with nothing lying about in it. So, if he finds anything there that has no business to be there, he picks it up with his beak, and throws it outside. He has not to open a door to do that; his drawing-room is only an open space which he keeps nice and smooth, so, as it is always open, it does not want a door to it. Now I think you will say—and I amsureyour mother will agree with you—that theArgus Pheasant does quite right to act in this way, and that to keep one's drawing-room clean and tidy is a very proper thing to do. Your mother may be surprised, perhaps, that it is the male Argus Pheasant, and not the hen bird, that does it, but I am sure she will not blamehimon that account. But I am sorry to say that the wicked little demon has found out a way of making this habit of the poor bird's—which is such a good one—a means of killing him.
The people who live in that part of the world—those yellow people called Malays that I have told you of—know all about the ways of the Argus Pheasant, and how he willnothave things lying about in his drawing-room. Now there is a great tall reed that grows there, called the bamboo, which I am sure you have heard of, and which your mother will tell you all about. The Malays cut off a piece of this bamboo, about two feet long, and then they shave it down—all except about six inches at one end of it—till it is almost as thin as writing paper. It looks like a piece of ribbon then, only, as it is very hard, as well as thin, its edges are quite sharp, and able to cut like a razor. But the piece at the end, which has been left and not shaved down, they cut into a point, so that it makes a peg, and this peg, that has a ribbon at the end of it, they stick into the ground, right in the middle of the Argus Pheasant'sdrawing-room. So, when the poor Argus Pheasant comes into his drawing-room, he sees something lying on the floor, which has no business to be there. It may be only a ribbon, but that is not the right place for it, so he tries to pick it up and throw it outside. But it won't come, however much he pulls it, for the peg at the end is fixed in the ground, and he is not strong enough to pull it out. At last he gets angry and thinks he will make a great effort. He twists the long ribbon round and round his neck—just as you would twist a piece of string round and round your hand if you were going to pull it hard—then takes hold of it with his beak, just above the ground, and gives quite a tremendous spring backwards. You may guess what happens. The long peg does not come out of the ground, but the ribbon is drawn quite tight round the poor bird's own neck, and the sharp edges almost cut his head off.
Now is notthata most cruel trick to play upon a bird who only wants to keep his drawing-room in proper order? How would your dear mother like to be treated in such a way for beingneatandtidy, which I am sure she is? But we are going to stop it—this cruel trick of the wicked little demon—for it was he who thought of it and taught it to the Malays. It is nottheirfault, you must not be angry with them,any more than with the poor women whose hearts the same demon has frozen. We are going to stop it, and you know how. The Malay only kills the poor Argus Pheasant to sell his feathers. Iftheywere not wanted he would leave him alone, to be happy and beautiful, and to dance in a nice tidy drawing-room. So just ask your mother to promise never to wear a hat—or anything else—that has a feather, or even a little piece of a feather, of an Argus Pheasant in it.
That was going to be the end of the chapter, but there is just something which I have forgotten. I am sure you will have been wondering why this beautiful pheasant is called the Argus Pheasant, and what the word Argus means. Well, I will give you an explanation. Argus was the name of a wonderful being—a kind of monster—who had a hundred eyes, and who lived a long time ago. But he offended the great god Jupiter, who had him killed, and then Jupiter's wife—the goddess Juno—whose servant he was, put all his eyes into the tail of the peacock—for the peacock was her favourite bird. That is one story; but another one says that she didnotput themallthere, but only the bright ones. The soft ones—those pretty ones that I have been telling you about—she put into the wings of another bird, that she liked quite as well, if not better, and that bird became, at once, the Argus Pheasant. But now if Argus hadonly a hundred eyes, how is it that there are two hundred, or more, in the wings of the Argus Pheasant, to say nothing of those in the tail of the peacock? That shows,Ithink, quite clearly that he must, really, have had a great many more; and so, now, when people talk to you of Argus and his hundred eyes, you can say, “A hundred, indeed! Why, he must have hadthreehundred at the very least.” And then you can tell them why.