Above Each Eye Was A Round Spot Of
The Same Metallic Green; The Bill Was Yellow, And The Feet And
Legs Were Of A Fine Cobalt ó111e, Strikingly Contrasting With All
The Other Parts Of The Body.
Merely in arrangement of colours and
texture of plumage this little bird was a gem of the first water,
yet there comprised only half its strange beauty.
Springing from
each side of the breast, and ordinarily lying concealed under the
wings, were little tufts of greyish feathers about two inches
long, and each terminated by a broad band of intense emerald
green. These plumes can be raised at the will of the bird, and
spread out into a pair of elegant fans when the wings are
elevated. But this is not the only ornament. The two middle
feathers of the tail are in the form of slender wires about five
inches long, and which diverge in a beautiful double curve. About
half an inch of the end of this wire is webbed on the outer side
only, awe coloured of a fine metallic green, and being curled
spirally inwards form a pair of elegant glittering buttons,
hanging five inches below the body, and the same distance apart.
These two ornaments, the breast fans and the spiral tipped tail
wires, are altogether unique, not occurring on any other species
of the eight thousand different birds that are known to exist
upon the earth; and, combined with the most exquisite beauty of
plumage, render this one of the most perfectly lovely of the many
lovely productions of nature. My transports of admiration and
delight quite amused my Aru hosts, who saw nothing more in the
"Burong raja" than we do in the robin of the goldfinch.
Thus one of my objects in coming to the far fast was
accomplished. I had obtained a specimen of the King Bird of
Paradise (Paradisea regia), which had been described by Linnaeus
from skins preserved in a mutilated state by the natives. I knew
how few Europeans had ever beheld the perfect little organism I
now gazed upon, and how very imperfectly it was still known in
Europe. The emotions excited in the minds of a naturalist, who
has long desired to see the actual thing which he has hitherto
known only by description, drawing, or badly-preserved external
covering - especially when that thing is of surpassing rarity and
beauty, require the poetic faculty fully to express them. The
remote island in which I found myself situated, in an almost
unvisited sea, far from the tracks of merchant fleets and navies;
the wild luxuriant tropical forest, which stretched far away on
every side; the rude uncultured savages who gathered round me, -
all had their influence in determining the emotions with which I
gazed upon this "thing of beauty." I thought of the long ages of
the past, during which the successive generations of this little
creature had run their course - year by year being born, and
living and dying amid these dark and gloomy woods, with no
intelligent eye to gaze upon their loveliness; to all appearance
such a wanton waste of beauty.
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