THE POOR, PLAIN HEN BIRD 39 
She has no wonderful plumes—she has no plumes at 
all—and out of all those splendid colours I have told 
you about—orangy-gold and emerald green and all 
the rest of them—she has only one, which is the 
coffee-brown. Now, of course, a nice rich coffee- 
brown is a very good colour, but still, by itself it is 
not enough to make a bird one of the most beautiful 
birds in the world. So when a bird is only coffee- 
brown, then, compared to a bird who has all those 
other colours and the most wonderful plumes as well, 
it is quite a plain bird. Soa poor hen Great Bird of 
Paradise is quite a plain bird compared to her hand- 
some husband, with his emerald throat and yellow- 
plush head and his wonderful orangy-gold plumes. 
But, then, if the poor hen bird has no glorious 
plumes of her own, she is always looking at them, 
always having them spread out on purpose for her 
to look at, and that must be very pleasant indeed. 
When the male Great Birds of Paradise wish to show 
their poor plain hens how handsome they are—just 
to comfort them and make them not mind being 
plain themselves—they come to a particular kind of 
tree in the forest, a tree that has a great many wide- 
spreading branches at the top, with not so very many 
leaves upon them, so that it is easy for them to be 
seen by the hens, who are sitting in other trees near, 
all ready to watch them, Then they raise up their 
