88 BEAUTIFUL BIRDS 
breast—make the Six-shafted (or Golden) Bird of 
Paradise quite as remarkable as the Black or the 
Blue, or any of the other, Birds of Paradise. Whether 
it makes him more remarkable, that I really can’t 
say. 2ou must make up your mind about that. 
The fact is, a// the Birds of Paradise are remarkable. 
I am sure if they were all together in one place, and 
you were to say out loud that any one of them was 
the most remarkable, all the other ones would be very 
much offended. 
But now, besides his six little shafts or arrows and 
the beautiful golden feathers on his throat and breast 
—they are very large, I must tell you, those feathers, 
and sometimes they look green and blue as well as 
golden—this Bird of Paradise has two immense tufts 
of beautiful, soft, silky feathers on each side of the 
breast. So large each tuft is, that when he lifts 
them both up—as of course he can do—they almost 
hide him altogether. Then on the back of his head 
he has a band of feathers, so wonderfully bright that 
they do not seem to be feathers at all. They look 
more like jewels—yes, jewels. It is as if some magi- 
cian had taken the sheen and shining light out of the 
emerald and topaz, and put them on that bird’s head, 
and told them to stay there. Then on his forehead, 
just above the beak—as if all this were not enough— 
there is a patch, quite a large patch, of pure white 
