Structure and Affinities. 553 



a hundred years later, most books state that they migrate 

 annually to Ternate, Banda, and Amboyua ; whereas the fact 

 is, that they are as completely unknown in those islands in a 

 wild state as they are in England. Linnaeus was also acquaint- 

 ed with a small species, which he named Paradisea regia (the 

 King Bird of Paradise), and since then nine or ten others have 

 been named, all of which were first described from skins pre- 

 served by the savages of New Guinea, and generally more or 

 less imperfect. These are now all known in the Malay Archi- 

 pelago as " burong mati," or dead birds, indicating that the 

 Malay traders never saw them alive. 



The Paradise! dae are a grouj) of moderate-sized birds, allied 

 in their structure and habits to crows, starlings, and to the 

 Australian honeysuckers ; but they are characterized by ex- 

 traordinary developments of plumage, which are unequalled 

 in any other family of birds. In several species large tufts of 

 delicate bright-colored feathers spring from each side of the 

 body beneath the wings, forming trains, or fans, or shields ; and 

 the middle feathers of the tail are often elongated into wires, 

 twisted into fantastic shapes, or adorned with the most bril- 

 liant metallic tints. In another set of species these accessory 

 plumes spring from the head, the back, or the shoulders ; while 

 the intensity of color and of metallic lustre displayed by their 

 plumage, is not to be equalled by any other birds, except, per- 

 haps, the humming-birds, and is not surpassed even by these. 

 They have been usually classified under two distinct families, 

 Paradiseidae and Epimachidae, the latter characterized by long 

 and slender beaks, and supposed to be allied to the Hoopoes ; 

 but the two grouf»s are so closely allied in every essential point 

 of structure and habits, that I shall consider them as forming 

 subdivisions of one family. I will now give a short description 

 of each of the known species, and then add some general re- 

 marks on their natural history. 



The Great Bird of Paradise (Paradisea apoda of Linnaeus) 

 is the largest species known, being generally seventeen or 

 eighteen inches from the beak to the tip of the tail. The 

 body, wings, and tail are of 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 delicate straw- 



