106 BEAUTIFUL BIRDS 
And now it was found that, whilst some of the male 
birds had loved their wives so much that they went 
on loving them still, in spite of the change in their 
appearance, others (and I am afraid they were the 
greater number) left off loving them, as soon as they 
had left off being beautiful, and were not able to love 
them again, although they tried ever so hard. You 
see, they had only loved them for their beauty, not 
for themselves, so as soon as there was no more 
beauty, there was no more love. So those male birds 
who had loved for love only, and not because their 
wives were beautiful, kept this beauty and added it 
to their own. Their wives did not want it back 
again, for love was enough for them. But the ones 
who had loved their wives, only because of their 
beauty, had to give it them back, for otherwise they 
would not have been able to go on loving them, and 
that would have been very awkward indeed. ‘That 
is why, in some birds, the males and females are as 
beautiful as each other, whilst in others, the males are 
twice as beautiful as the females. As I told you, 
this is an explanation which does as well for any other 
bird as it does for the Birds of Paradise, and, if you 
like it, you can believe in it till you have grown up 
from a simple little child into a complicated clever 
person. 
So now there are six Birds of Paradise that your 
