58 BEAUTIFUL BIRDS 
wonderful feathers in his tail; they are not feathers 
at all, really, that is to say, the soft part of them on 
each side of the quill, which we call the web, is gone, 
and there is only the quill left, but it is such a funny 
sort of quill that you would never think it was one. 
It is flat and smooth and shiny, and quite a quarter of 
an inch wide. In fact it looks like a ribbon, a beau- 
tiful, black, glossy ribbon, twenty-two inches (which is 
almost two feet) long. 
These two wonderful ribbons—I told you there 
were two—hang down in graceful curves as the bird sits 
on the branch of a tree, first a curve out and then in 
and then out again, just at the tips, so that the two 
together make quite a pretty figure. Of course, when 
there is any wind at all, they float gracefully about 
and look very pretty indeed, and when the Red Bird 
of Paradise flies, his two wonderful ribbons float in the 
air behind him, just as if he had been into a linen- 
draper’s shop and bought something, and flown out 
again with it, in his tail. And yet, to make these two 
pretty ribbons—which are feathers, really, though 
they do not look like them—the soft part of 
the feather, which is usually the pretty part, has 
been taken away, and only the quill, which is usu- 
ally almost ugly by comparison, has been left. And 
yet they are so handsome. ‘That is because Dame 
Nature is such a wonderful workwoman. She can 
