BIRDS-OF-PA RA DISE. 



519 



or birds of the sun ; while the learned Dutchmen, who wrote in Latin, called them 

 'avis paradiseus,' or Paradise birds. John van Linschoten gives these names in 1598, 

 and tells us that no one has seen these birds alive, for they live in the air, always 

 turning towards the sun, and never lighting on the earth till they die; for they have 

 neither feet nor wings, as, he adds, may be seen by the birds carried to India, and 

 sometimes to Holland, but being very costly they were then rarely seen in Europe. 

 More than a hundred years later Mr. William Funnel, who accompanied Dampier, 

 and wrote an account of the voyage, saw specimens at Amboina, and was told that 

 they came to Banda to eat nutmegs, which intoxicated them and made them fall down 

 senseless, when they were killed by ants. Down to 1758, when Linnaeus named the 



' e V. v | ' . 



:' ' 



i'iu. U55. Paradis&a sanguined, red bird-of-Paradise. 



largest species Paradiscea apoda (i. e., the footless Paradise bird), no perfect specimen 

 had been seen in Europe, and absolutely nothing was known about them. As before 

 mentioned, Wallace was the first naturalist to observe them in their native haunts 

 during his eight years' travels in the Malay Archipelago from 1854 to 1862, but since 

 his success several recent travelers have followed his steps and added considerably to 

 the knowledge of these birds, among which may be mentioned Rosenberg, Bernstein, 

 d'Albertis, Beccari, etc. 



The great bird-of-Paradise (P. apoda} see plate is the largest species known, 

 being generally seventeen or eighteen inches from the beak to the tip of the tail. 

 The chief color is a rich coffee-brown, which deepens on the breast to a blackish 

 violet or purple brown. The whole top of the head and neck is of an exceedingly 



