54 BEAUTIFUL BIRDS 
Paradise are, and how very beautiful they are, and you 
know how gloriously beautiful the Great Bird of Para- 
dise is, and how it is killed and not allowed to live and 
be happy, just because it is so beautiful. But now these 
Great Birds of Paradise live only in some quite small 
islands and just in one part of one large one, and 
although there may be a good many of them where 
they do live, yet if they are always being killed in 
that way, very soon there will be no more of them 
left. Then there will be no more Great Birds of 
Paradise in the world—for they do not live outside 
those islands—and when they are once gone they can 
never, never come again. 
But do you not think that it would be a dreadful 
thing if such a bird as this—this beautiful Great Bird 
of Paradise that I have told you about—were to be 
killed and killed until it was not in the world any 
more? Of course you think it would be a dreadful 
thing, and I am sure that you would prevent it if you 
could. And you cam prevent it—now—yes, now— 
and in the easiest way possible. All you have to do 
—only you must do it directly—is to put your arms 
round your mother’s neck and make her promise 
never, never to wear a hat with the feathers of a 
Great Bird of Paradise in it. Of course she will 
promise, if you ask her in that way, and keep on, and 
when she once has promised you must not let her 
