192 BEAUTIFUL BIRDS 
large that he looks quite wrapped up in them; and I 
think he is, too, partly because of that, but still more 
because they are so very handsome. 
So, first, I will tell you what these large, handsome 
wings of his are like. Well, in each one there are 
twenty-five or twenty-six very fine long feathers, but 
these feathers are not all so fine or so long as each 
other. Ten of them are about a foot long, and these 
are prettily marked and mottled with all sorts of 
pretty brown colours, whilst, down the centre of each 
one, there is a pretty blue stripe. It is the quill of 
the feather that makes that stripe, for it is blue, and 
looks as if it had been painted. So you see even 
these are pretty feathers, but it is the fifteen or six- 
teen other ones that are so very beautiful. They are 
much broader and longer than the other ten—the 
longest are more than twice as long—and down 
each of them, just on one side of the great quill in 
the centre, there is a row of such wonderful spots. 
They are as large as horse-chestnuts (big ones J mean), 
and what they look like is a cup and ball, the ball 
just lying in the cup ready to be sent up; only, of 
course, the cup has no handle to it—you must not 
think that—for the spots are round. And, do you 
know, the balls look as if they were really balls, so 
that you would think you could take them in your 
hand, and throw them up into the air, and catch them 
