A BOOK THAT WOULD INTEREST 95 
resting book. Iam sure J should find it interesting, 
and I ¢htnk you would too. Depend upon it, if any one 
could tell people what a Bird of Paradise did, he would 
interest them very much more than by telling them 
how he shot it. That is not at all interesting, how 
he shot it. Do you think it would be so very in- 
teresting for people to know how you broke a very 
handsome ornament in your mother’s drawing-room ? 
Why, I don’t think it would interest even your 
mother—much ; but she would be very sorry you 
broke it. And that is just how J feel (and I think 
some other people do too) when a person tells me 
how he shot a Bird of Paradise. Things of that 
kind interest the little demon. If they interest any 
one else, I am afraid it is only decause of that little 
demon, because of his wicked powders and his having 
sent the Goddess of Pity to sleep. 
But I am sorry to say that there is hardly anybody 
who knows anything about all these Birds of Paradise, 
anything about their habits and how they live and 
how they dance and the way they arrange their 
wonderful plumage, so as to make it look as beautiful 
as possible. Perhaps there are a few people who 
know just a little—a very little—about some of the 
more common kinds, but as for all the rest, if any 
one knows anything about them, it must be those 
black or yellow people that we call savages, who 
