me VERY (BEAUTIFUL BIRD a7 
plush of its head. Then this bird has a pale blue beak 
and pale pink legs, and I am sure if he thinks himself 
very handsome, you can hardly call him conceited. 
For he would be handsome only with this that I have 
told you about ; that would be quite enough to make 
him a beautiful bird without anything else. 
But fas he anything else—any other kind of 
beauty Jesides what I have told you about? Listen. 
The emerald throat and the yellow velvet-plush 
head and the blue beak and the pink legs are as 
nothing, nothing whatever, compared to the glorious 
plumes which this Bird of Paradise has on each side 
of his body. Oh, you never saw such plumes, and 
you cannot think how lovely they are. There are 
two of them—one on each side—and each one is 
made up of a number of very long, soft, deli- 
cate silky feathers, which are of an orange-gold or 
golden-orange colour, and so bright and glossy that 
they shine in the sun like floss-silk. Just where they 
spring from the body each one of them has a stripe 
of deep crimson-red, and, towards the top, they soften 
into a pretty pale, mauvy brown. Even one feather 
like that on each side would be beautiful—or one all 
by itself in the middle—but fancy a plume of them 
on each side, a thick plume too, though each feather 
is so slender and delicate—there are so many of them. 
They look lovely enough when they stream out 
