746 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



more easily, the Malay and Chinese traders concluded that they had 

 none ; and all sorts of stories were told about their living continually 

 on the wing, and being, in fact, birds of heaven, whence originated the 

 names of " birds of paradise " and " birds of the sun " given them by 

 the early Portuguese and Dutch writers. Down to 1760 the skins of 

 these birds never reached Europe with feet attached to them, and the 

 great Linnaeus recorded the fact by naming the largest kind Paradisea 

 apoda, or footless bird of paradise, a name by which it is still known 

 among men of science. The natives also generally cut off the wings, 

 so as to give greater prominence to the ornamental feathers ; and this 

 gives the birds an altogether different appearance from what they really 

 possess in a living state, or when properly preserved. 



By far the greater number of these birds, and those of the richest 

 colors and most remarkable plumage, live on the mainland of New 

 Guinea, and they are especially abundant in the mountains of the 

 northwestern peninsula, where the Italian and German naturalists 

 already referred to obtained fine specimens of all the known kinds. 

 In the southeast one new species has been discovered, but only two or 

 three sorts are found there ; and as they are also in little variety in 

 the lowland districts of the northwest, it becomes pretty certain that 

 they are more especially mountain birds. We may therefore confi- 

 dently expect that, when the great ranges of the interior are visited 

 and explored by naturalists, other and perhaps still more wonderful 

 species will be discovered. It is interesting to note that, with the 

 exception of one very peculiar species discovered by myself in the 

 Moluccas, all the birds of paradise are found within the hundred-fath- 

 om line around New Guinea, and therefore on lands which have prob- 

 ably been connected with it at a comparatively recent period. 



Why such wonderful birds should have been developed here and 

 nowhere else is a mystery we shall perhaps never completely solve ; 

 but it is probably connected with the absence of the higher types of 

 mammalia, and with the protection afforded by luxuriant equatorial 

 forests. The only other country in which similar strange developments 

 of plumage and equally superb colors are found is equatorial America, 

 where somewhat similar conditions prevail, and where mammalia of a 

 low grade of organization have long predominated. Whatever may be 

 the causes at work, their action has not been restricted to the paradise- 

 birds. Nowhere else in the world are pigeons and parrots so numer- 

 ous and so beautiful as in New Guinea. The great crowned pigeons, 

 the largest of the whole family and rivaling the largest game-birds, 

 were first described by Dampier as " a stately land-fowl about the size 

 of the dunghill cock, sky-colored, but with a white blotch and reddish 

 spots about the wings, and a long bunch of feathers on the crown." 

 Many of the fruit-doves are strikingly beautiful, being adorned with 

 vivid patches of crimson, blue, or yellow, on a pure green ground. 

 Parrots are wonderfully varied, including the great black and the white 



