It seems sad, that on the one hand such exquisite
creatures should live out their lives and exhibit their
Charms
only in these wild inhospitable regions, doomed for ages yet to
come to hopeless barbarism; while on the other hand, should
civilized man ever reach these distant lands, and bring moral,
intellectual, and physical light into the recesses of these
virgin forests, we may be sure that he will so disturb the
nicely-balanced relations of organic and inorganic nature as to
cause the disappearance, and finally the extinction, of these
very beings whose wonderful structure and beauty he alone is
fitted to appreciate and enjoy. This consideration must surely
tell us that all living things were _not_ made for man. Many of
them have no relation to him. The cycle of their existence has
gone on independently of his, and is disturbed or broken by every
advance in man's intellectual development; and their happiness
and enjoyment, their loves and hates, their struggles for
existence, their vigorous life and early death, would seem to be
immediately related to their own well-being and perpetuation
alone, limited only by the equal well-being and perpetuation of
the numberless other organisms with which each is more or less
intimately connected.
After the first king-bird was obtained, I went with my men into
the forest, and we were not only rewarded with another in equally
perfect plumage, but I was enabled to see a little of the habits
of both it and the larger species. It frequents the lower trees
of the less dense forests: and is very active, flying strongly
with a whirring sound, and continually hopping or flying from
branch to branch. It eats hard stone-bearing fruits as large as a
gooseberry, and often flutters its wings after the manner of the
South American manakins, at which time it elevates and expands
the beautiful fans with which its breast is adorned. The natives
of Aru call it "Goby-goby."
One day I get under a tree where a number of the Great Paradise
birds were assembled, but they were high up in the thickest of
the foliage, and flying and jumping about so continually that I
could get no good view of them. At length I shot one, but it was
a young specimen, and was entirely of a rich chocolate-brown
colour, without either the metallic green throat or yellow plumes
of the full-grown bird. All that I had yet seen resembled this,
and the natives told me that it would be about two months before
any would be found in full plumage. I still hoped, therefore, to
get some. Their voice is most extraordinary. At early morn,
before the sun has risen, we hear a loud cry of "Wawk-wawk-wawk,
wók-wók-wók," which resounds through the forest, changing its
direction continually. This is the Great Bird of Paradise going
to seek his breakfast. Others soon follow his example; lories and
parroquets cry shrilly, cockatoos scream, king-hunters croak and
bark, and the various smaller birds chirp and whistle their
morning song.
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