The New Student's Reference Work/Birds-of-Paradise

Birds-of-Paradise, the name given to an Australasian family of birds of very brilliant and varied plumage, no bird its rival in splendor. The history of the name is interesting. The early voyagers to the Moluccas were shown dried skins of these birds from which the feet and wings had been removed, and for several centuries thereafter, no perfect specimens were seen in Europe. About the year 1600, they came to be known as birds-of-Paradise. One writer of that period tells us that no one has seen these birds alive, for they live in the air, always turning toward the sun, and never alighting on the earth till they die, for they have neither feet nor wings. Even Linnaeus, in 1758, named the largest kind the footless Paradise-bird, as no perfect specimen had been seen in Europe. During 1854-62 Alfred Russel Wallace was in the Malay Archipelago and was the first naturalist to observe these birds in their native haunts. They are now very common in museums, and some kinds are used in triming ladies' hats, certain species having almost been exterminated owing to the milliners. Some are caught in snares, others are shot with blunt arrows by the natives.

There are twenty-five or thirty species of these Paradise-birds, including the great bird-of-Paradise, the largest kind, about eighteen inches from beak to tip of tail, the lesser bird-of-Paradise, etc. The males alone have brilliant and gorgeous plumage; the females are plain. Associated with the more brilliant kinds, in the same family, are the bower birds of Australia and New Guinea. They are all related to the crow-family and vary in size from that of the crow to that of the sparrow. The plumage is not only of great brilliance but also of the richest velvety appearance. In many species there are numerous long tufts of feathers that start from the shoulders and spread out and down in wondrous fashion. These are the prized bird-of-Paradise plumes used by the milliners. The various species show varied gorgeousness; the Paradise Minor is golden above with throat and top of head a metallic green, coppery red below, and with copper-red wings and tail, a great swirl of golden and white plumes completing its splendor; the King Bird is a glossy crimson above, divided by a band of metallic green about the throat from the white below, and has a fan of ashy plumes tipped with emerald. See Wallace: Malay Archipelago.