The Lesser, Black, Blue, and Golden Birds of Paradise
Now I have told you about two very beautiful Birds of Paradise, and
in this chapter I shall tell you about some others; at least I shall
try to tell you what they are like, because not so very much is known
about their habits, what they do, or how they live. That is because
they live in such wild parts of the world, in such deep, dense forests,
and on such high, steep hills. Not many travellers have been into
these out-of-the-way places, and those that have gone there, instead
of trying to watch them and find out all about them--which would have
been so interesting--have shot at them with their guns whenever they
have seen them, and have either killed them or driven them away. It is
not by killing birds or by driving them away that you can find out much
about their habits.
It would be much better if these travellers were to take a good pair of
glasses and were to sit down in the forests or on the hills and watch
the birds through the glasses whenever they saw them; for with a good
pair of glasses one can watch birds even when they do not come very
near to one. Then we should know something about them, and the more we
know about a bird or any other living creature the more interesting it
becomes for us. One cannot be _very_ interested in something that one
knows nothing about, but as one begins to know even a little about it,
it begins to get interesting directly. But then, why is it that the
travellers who go out to these countries take guns with them instead
of glasses, and shoot the birds--as well as other animals--instead of
watching them? That is a question which I cannot answer. All I can tell
you is that it is as I say, and I am afraid the wicked little demon has
something to do with it. But now we must get on, and first we come to
the Lesser Bird of Paradise.
The Lesser Bird of Paradise is something like the Great Bird of
Paradise, only it is not quite so handsome and not nearly so
big--which, of course, is what you would expect from its name. Where
the Great Bird of Paradise is brown the lesser one is brown too, but
it is a lighter brown, not such a nice, rich, coffee-coloured one as
the other, and, on the breast, this brown colour does not change into
a blackish-violet or a browny-purple as you know it does in the
Great Bird of Paradise--it is brown there just the same. On the back,
though, the Lesser Bird of Paradise is all yellow, so that here, if you
remember, it has the advantage; but then the long plumes on each side
under the wings are not _so_ long as in the Great Bird of Paradise,
and they have only just a tinge of orange in them, instead of being of
the beautiful golden-orange colour that _his_ ones are. The tips of
them, too, are white instead of mauvy-brown, and the two funny feathers
in the tail are much shorter than the Great Bird of Paradise's funny
feathers.
[Illustration: THE LESSER BIRD OF PARADISE]
But although the Lesser Bird of Paradise is not such a beautiful bird
as the Great Bird of Paradise is, still it is a very beautiful bird
indeed--what Bird of Paradise is not?--and as it is commoner than the
other Birds of Paradise and easier to get, it is the one that is most
often killed and put into the hats that the women with the frozen
hearts wear; which is why I want you to jump up and throw your arms
round your mother's neck and make her promise never, never to wear a
hat that has a Lesser Bird of Paradise in it.
And now, what would you say to a Black Bird of Paradise? For there is
one--yes, and such a splendid bird. "Oh, but," you will say, "if he
is black he cannot be so _very_ beautiful, for he cannot be of all
sorts of beautiful colours like the other ones." But have you not heard
of a black diamond? That is black, but _in_ its blackness all sorts
of wonderful colours are lying asleep, and sometimes they wake up and
flash out of it, as the sun's rays do out of a dark, stormy cloud, and
then they go back into it again and are lost, as the sun's rays are
lost when the sun goes in. Yes, they are asleep, those colours, and
whilst they are asleep the diamond is really black, but when they wake
up and begin to gleam and flash, and sparkle, and shoot about, then it
is not a _black_ diamond any more, although we may call it so.
And there may be a dark, deep cavern, so dark and so deep that you
would be quite afraid to go into it, especially at night. But some
gipsies, who were not afraid, have gone into it and have lighted a
fire, and the flames leap up and glimmer through the smoke, and then
sink for a moment and shoot up again, and fall on the sides and roof
of the cavern, and make a deep glow in its mouth, and flicker on the
leaves of the trees outside, and send out long tongues of flame that
make a red light in the air and lick the darkness off everything that
they touch. That cavern _was_ dark and black before the fire was
lighted in it, and when the fire goes out it will be dark and black
again, but it is not dark and black just now, whilst the red fire is
burning.
Or it may be a dark night, very dark and stormy, so dark that it is
difficult for people who are out in it to find their way, whilst people
who only look out of the window, say that it is a pitch-dark night. But
now the rain is beginning to fall, and it comes down faster and faster,
and there is a muttering in the dull sky, and, all at once, a flash of
lightning leaps out of the darkness, cutting it as though with a red,
jagged knife, and for an instant it is day, and you see the leaves on
the trees, and the rain-drops falling through the air, and the fields
with haystacks standing in them, or rivers winding through them, and
the distant hills, and the line where the earth meets the heavens.
Then, all in a moment--almost before you can say "Oh," and quite before
the great clap of thunder that follows the lightning-flash--it is
night--deep, dark, black night--again. The night in which there is a
storm like that is a dark night, but it is not dark when the lightning
is leaping and flashing.
It is the same with this Black Bird of Paradise. At first when you
look at him, all his plumage is of a deep, dark, velvety black, a
lovely black, a beautiful, smooth, glossy black, a black that seems
almost to gleam and to sparkle as if it were jewellery--black velvet
jewellery you may call it, very handsome, very beautiful indeed. Still
it is black, but all at once all the colours that have lain asleep in
it--blues and greens, and bluey-greens and greeny-blues, and purples
and indigos, and wonderful bronzy reflections--wake up together,
and flash out of it like the sparkles out of the diamond, like the
tongues of fire out of the black cavern, like the lightning out of the
dark night. There they all are, flashing and leaping about, meeting
and mingling, then shooting apart, playing little games with each
other, till all at once they fall asleep again, and there is only the
smooth, glossy black, the deep, jetty black, the shining, gleaming,
satiny-velvety black, the black velvet, black satin jewellery. That
is what a Black Bird of Paradise is like, like a black diamond, like
a cavern with a fire lighted in it, like a dark night with flashes of
lightning.
But now I will tell you a little more about his appearance, for this
that I have told you is only just to give you an idea of how that
wonderful material, from which Dame Nature with her scissors cuts out
all her children (for all things that are alive are the children of
Dame Nature), can be black, and yet have all sorts of colours in it at
the same time.
First, you must know--so as not to make any mistake--that this "Black
Bird of Paradise" has another name--indeed he has two other names, but
one of them is in Latin, so we won't bother about that. There are some
birds that have no English names, and when we come to them we will
have to call them by their Latin ones--but as long as a bird has an
English name we will never trouble our heads about what its Latin name
may be, not we, any more than the bird itself does, and no bird that
has an English name ever thinks about what its name is in Latin--in
fact I really do not believe that it knows. An English name is enough
for _any_ bird, if only it is so _fortunate_ as to have one. Now this
bird is so fortunate as to have two English names--the Black Bird of
Paradise, that you know about--which is what the English people who
live in its own country call it--and the Superb Bird of Paradise,
which is what naturalists at home in England call it. The _Superb_
Bird of Paradise! Just fancy having a name like that! Supposing a
gentleman--some friend of your father and mother, who calls sometimes
at the house--were to be called the superb Mr. Jones or the superb Mr.
Robinson! Only he would have to be very much more handsome than he is
at all likely to be, before he would deserve a name like _that_.
Well, the two most wonderful things about the Superb or Black Bird of
Paradise--after his marvellous black plumage, that has all sorts of
colours lying asleep in it--are two wonderful ornaments that he has,
one on his head and one on his breast. The one on his head is the most
wonderful. It is a sort of crest--at least I think that is the best
name for it. Some people, I know, call it a shield, but then that is
what they call the other wonderful thing on the breast too; so, if they
call that a shield, I think they should call this a helmet, for it is
a helmet, and not a shield, that soldiers wear on the head. _I_ shall
call it a crest, but it is one of the most extraordinary crests that
any bird ever had. It is like a pair of black velvet lappets, so long
that they go all down the back and reach half-an-inch beyond the tips
of the wings. But at the back of the head, where this crest begins,
the two lappets meet, and they are joined together for a little way
before they begin to go apart. I tell you what will give you an idea
of the shape of this crest. Have you ever seen a pair of trousers
that have been washed, and are hanging out on a clothes-line to dry,
with the legs very wide apart, so wide they look as if they had been
stretched?--I don't know if they really have. Of course you have seen
such a thing. Well, that will give you an idea--mind, that is _all_
I can say--of what this wonderful crest that is worn by the Black
Bird of Paradise is like. The legs of the trousers are the two lappets,
from where they are divided from each other, and, farther up, they
join and become all one, just as the legs of a pair of trousers _do_.
Only, of course, I need hardly tell you that a crest of beautiful,
black, velvety feathers, glossed with bronze and purple, has a far more
_elegant_ appearance than a pair of trousers hanging out to dry, though
it may have just a _little_ the same shape.
[Illustration: KING BIRD OF PARADISE]
Now I think you will agree with me that this crest is a wonderful
thing, even when it is only lying down along the neck and body of the
bird. But what would you say when you saw the Black Bird of Paradise
lift it right up above its head?--which is what he does, you may be
sure, when he wants to show off before the hen bird, who has no crest
on _her_ head nor shield on her breast, and whose black feathers, I
am afraid, are not nearly so glossy and velvety, and have no colours
lying asleep in them and ready to wake up all of a sudden. Ah, you
would think the Black Bird of Paradise a wonderful, wonderful bird
if you were to see him bowing politely to his hen and lifting up his
wonderful, wonderful crest to her.
But I told you this bird had a shield too, and when he lifts up his
crest over his head, he shoots out his shield in front of his breast,
at the same time, and this shield is something of the same shape as
the crest or helmet, only smaller, and always of a lovely bluey-green
colour, with a glossy sheen upon it that is just like that upon satin.
Yes, _always_, for the colours that go to sleep in the other parts of
the Black Bird of Paradise's plumage, keep wide awake in the shield on
its breast, or, if you ever do catch them napping, it is only just for
a single instant, and then out they flash again, wider awake than ever.
So now, if you were to say--as I am sure you would say--that the Black
Bird of Paradise was a wonderful, wonderful bird, even if you were to
see him with only his crest lifted up, what, ah, _what_ would you say
if you were to see him with his crest lifted up and his shield shot out
at the same time? Why, I think that then you could not say less than
that he was a wonderful, wonderful, _wonderful_ bird--three wonderfuls
instead of only two. And indeed you would be right.
Yes, he is a wonder, is the Black Bird of Paradise, though I must
tell you that he has not any of those long, silky feathers that hang
down like cascades and shoot up like fountains, from the sides of
those other Birds of Paradise I have been telling you about. And he
has no long "funny feathers" in his tail either. You see he cannot
have everything, and his crest and shield are instead of those. They
are not quite so beautiful, perhaps, but I think they are still more
wonderful. Even when his crest--his helmet--is laid down and his shield
is not stuck out, the Black Bird of Paradise is a wonder, but when he
raises the one up and shoots the other out, both at the same time,
and says to the hen, "Look at me!" and all the colours that have been
asleep in the helmet, or awake in the shield, gleam and flash and
sparkle together, ah, _then_ he is a wonder of wonders.
Then, do you think he is a bird that ought to be killed and killed
and killed, only to have those beautiful, bronzy-black crests, and
satiny-green, gleaming shields of his set in hats where they soon get
dull and dusty, and where he can never raise them up or shoot them out
or pay proper attention to them--because he is dead, dead, dead? Is
he to be killed and killed till he is gone for ever, and there is not
one more beautiful Black Bird of Paradise in the whole world? Oh no,
no, no; it ought not to be so--it must not, it _shall_ not--because
you will prevent it--yes, you. You will turn to your mother now, this
minute, if she is there, if she is reading this to you, or, if not, you
will run to her--oh, so quickly, so quickly--and ask her, beg her--keep
on asking and asking, begging and begging her to promise--till she
_has_ promised--never, _never_ to buy a hat that has a beautiful Black
Bird of Paradise in it.
Now, as I have said that the Black Bird of Paradise is such a
very wonderful bird--as I have even called him a "wonder of
wonders"--perhaps you will think that there is no other Bird of
Paradise quite so wonderful as he is. Well, I do not wonder at your
thinking so; and, do you know, whilst I was describing him to you and
telling you how wonderful he was, I thought so too. But I had forgotten
the Blue Bird of Paradise.
The Blue Bird of Paradise is quite as wonderful as the Black one.
Perhaps--but mind I only say perhaps--he is even a little more
wonderful. To begin with, blue is a very uncommon colour for a Bird
of Paradise to be of. None of the Birds of Paradise that I have told
you about have feathers that are really blue. There are blue lights, I
know, in some of their feathers, especially on the head, but still they
are not quite blue. You could hardly call them blue feathers, for there
is a green light or a purple light as well as a blue light in them,
which makes them bluey-green or greeny purple, or, at any rate, green
or purple _and_ blue, not just blue by itself. And then, as you know,
sometimes all those lights go to sleep and then the feathers are black.
I do not think there is any Bird of Paradise except the Blue Bird of
Paradise whose feathers are really and truly blue, and I am quite sure
that there is no other one--at least that we know of--which has so much
blue about it, that you would think of it as a blue bird, or that has
blue feather-fountains--those wonderful long silky plumes that grow out
of each side under the wings.
That is what is most wonderful in the Blue Bird of Paradise. There is
no other Bird of Paradise that can sit under a blue fountain or look
out of a blue sunset. But the plumes of the Blue Bird of Paradise are
not so long as those of the Great or the Lesser Bird of Paradise, and
when he spreads them out they go more on each side of him than up over
his head, and, for this reason, I think, he looks more as if he was
looking out of a sunset than sitting under a fountain. You have seen
a beautiful sunset often; there will be blue in it somewhere, cool,
lovely lakes or bays, or long, stretching inlets, of the loveliest,
purest, most delicate blue. But the clouds that float in those bays
and lakes like islands, or that shut them in and make their shores,
like great burning continents, are not blue, but rosy red or fiery
crimson or molten gold or golden-crimson flame. That, at least, is what
the brightest ones are like, those that are gathered nearest round
the sun. Now, if they could keep all their brightness and glowingness
and be blue instead of rose or crimson or gold, then it would be a
blue sunset; and that is what the sunset is like that the Blue Bird
of Paradise looks out of, when he spreads out his plumes, just as the
sunset that the Red Bird of Paradise looks out of, when _he_ spreads
out _his_ plumes, is like a red sunset--only of feathers, of course.
One is a blue feather-sunset, and the other a red feather-sunset.
And how soft those feathers are, those wonderful, blue sunset-feathers
of the wonderful Blue Bird of Paradise. Oh, I cannot tell you how
softly they droop down over his breast, or how softly--how _very_
softly--each feather touches the other one, upon it. How softly, I
wonder--for I know you will want me to say. As softly as a snowflake
falls upon snow? Oh, more softly than that. As softly as two gossamers
are blown together in the air? Still more softly, even. As softly,
then, as your mother kisses you when you are asleep, and she does not
wish to wake you? Yes, I think it is as softly, or almost as softly, as
that. Those are two of the very softest kisses--when your mother kisses
you when you are asleep, so as not to wake you, and when the soft blue
feathers of the plumes on each side of a Blue Bird of Paradise, meet
and kiss each other on its breast.
Now that is all I am going to tell you about the front part of the
Blue Bird of Paradise--for those wonderful blue feathers that grow on
each side become the front part of him when he spreads them out. You
see, they open out like two fans, with the handles turned towards each
other, and meet together on the breast and above the head, so as to
make one large fan or screen. Of course there is something behind this
screen, and through it peeps the head of the bird, which is very pretty
too. But you don't look at his head, you don't seem to see it. All
you see or look at are those beautiful, beautiful plumes, that lovely
screen, that wonderful soft blue feather-sunset.
As for the back part of this wonderful Blue Bird of Paradise, well,
that is blue too, most of it--a handsome blue, a lovely blue, a
gleaming, shining, glossy, satiny blue that looks darker when you see
it from one side, and lighter when you see it from another, and which
gleams and glints and is very resplendent (which is a word your mother
will explain to you) however you look at it. Oh, a glorious blue, a
magnificent blue, but not _such_ a blue as the blue of those soft
lovely feathers that spread out on each side and curl over and meet and
kiss each other so softly, on the breast. And the head and neck of the
Blue Bird of Paradise (for sometimes he puts them behind the screen,
and then they are the back part of him) are of a soft velvet brown
that, as you look at it, becomes a soft velvet-claret-magenta colour
(which your mother knows all about and will explain to you), and in his
tail there are two long "funny feathers" that hang down from the bough
he is sitting on, and--and _now_ you must try to imagine him. _When_
you have imagined him--or before you have, if you are not able to--you
must make your mother promise--now what? You know, of course. You must
make her promise _never_ to wear a hat with a Blue Bird of Paradise's
feathers in it.
Now we come to the Golden or Six-shafted Bird of Paradise, who lives
just in one part of New Guinea--that long part at the north that goes
out into the sea, and which we call a peninsula; you have only to
look at the map and you will see it. Now I think of it, the Superb
or Black Bird of Paradise--or shall we say the Superb Black Bird of
Paradise?--lives there too, so I daresay they sometimes see each other.
Perhaps they call on each other, for, you see, they are both of them
distinguished. One is superb and the other golden, and when two people
are like that they do not mind calling upon one another. You see,
neither of them can be hurt by it then. A _superb_ person may call
upon even a _golden_ person, and yet feel quite well after it, and it
will not do a _golden_ person any harm at all to call upon a _superb_
person. So, if birds are like people, I feel sure that sometimes the
Golden and the Superb Bird of Paradise call upon each other.
Now you will want to know why this Bird of Paradise is called both the
Golden and the Six-shafted Bird of Paradise. Well, he is called the
Golden Bird of Paradise because he has lovely golden feathers on his
throat and breast, and he is called the Six-shafted Bird of Paradise
because six little arrows--for that is what they look like--seem to
have been shot into his head, three on each side--arrows, you know, are
sometimes called shafts. These little shafts or arrows are six inches
long--almost as long as the bird itself--and bend right back over
his body, as far as to the tail. Of course each of them is really a
feather--an arrow that is all feather--but it is a "funny feather" with
only the quill, which is very thin and slender, till quite the end,
where there is just a little oval piece of the soft web--the part that
looks really like a feather--left upon it. That is what makes them look
like arrows. But is it not curious that the "funny feathers" of _this_
Bird of Paradise are in his head instead of in his tail? I think it
must be because Dame Nature wanted to make him a little different.
Of course you will see at once that six feathers like that--to say
nothing of his wonderful golden breast--make the Six-shafted (or
Golden) Bird of Paradise quite as remarkable as the Black or the Blue,
or any of the other, Birds of Paradise. Whether it makes him _more_
remarkable, that I really can't say. _You_ must make up your mind about
that. The fact is, _all_ the Birds of Paradise are remarkable. I am
sure if they were all together in one place, and you were to say out
loud that any one of them was the _most_ remarkable, all the other ones
would be very much offended.
But now, besides his six little shafts or arrows and the beautiful
golden feathers on his throat and breast--they are very large, I must
tell you, those feathers, and sometimes they look green and blue
as well as golden--this Bird of Paradise has two immense tufts of
beautiful, soft, silky feathers on each side of the breast. So large
each tuft is, that when he lifts them both up--as of course he can
do--they almost hide him altogether. Then on the back of his head he
has a band of feathers, so wonderfully bright that they do not seem
to be feathers at all. They look more like jewels--yes, jewels. It is
as if some magician had taken the sheen and shining light out of the
emerald and topaz, and put them on that bird's head, and told them
to stay there. Then on his forehead, just above the beak--as if all
this were not enough--there is a patch, quite a large patch, of pure
white feathers that shine like satin. Really I think you might
almost say that this Bird of Paradise was _the_ most wonderful of all
the Birds of Paradise. But take care, do not say it out loud or you
will offend _all_ the others. Only I forgot, they are not here. Well,
then, you _may_ say it out loud, if you really think so. I do wish I
could have got this bird's picture, but as he would not give it me, you
must look at the picture of the Golden-winged Bird of Paradise instead.
_He_ is a very handsome bird, too--very much brighter than he looks.
[Illustration: GOLDEN-WINGED BIRD OF PARADISE]
Well, this makes the sixth Bird of Paradise which I have been able
to tell you something about--I mean about their appearance, for very
little else is known about them. But, do you know, there are some forty
or fifty different kinds, and, of course, if I were to describe them
all, or anything like all (which, however, I should not be able to do),
this little book would become quite a big book, and there would be no
room in it for any other kinds of beautiful birds. So I won't describe
any more Birds of Paradise, but I will just say something, before
getting on to the other beautiful birds, about Birds of Paradise and
beautiful birds in general. That means about most Birds of Paradise and
most other beautiful birds. When we talk about things in general, or
people in general, we mean most things or most people. But that must be
in another chapter, for this one has been quite long enough, and so
we must end it. Oh, but wait a minute. Really, I was quite forgetting.
First you must get your mother to promise never to buy a hat in which
there are any feathers belonging to the Golden or Six-shafted Bird of
Paradise. Yes, and never to wear it either, even if she did not buy it,
but had it given to her. Of course your father might give your mother a
hat, but if he were to give her one of that sort, he would have to take
it back to the shop and change it for another.