BIRD LIFE 235 



Many birds are known to moult much oftener than 

 once in the year. 



On the same floor of the Museum as the case arranged 

 to show the structure, uses, arrangement and differing 

 forms of feathers (to the left of the entrance of the 

 Bird Gallery) is another which, though not designed 

 with this object, shows the perfection to which the 

 colour decoration of birds is carried. It contains 

 twenty-six varieties of Birds of Paradise, no two at all 

 alike. One is richly dressed in plain black velvet, and 

 carries as a tiara six emeralds mounted, three on each 

 side of the head, on long spikes. Others are almost 

 vulgarly gorgeous in reds and greens and yellows. 

 Some wear long court-trains of filmy feathers, in buff, 

 or cream, or strawberry and cream. One, over a 

 mantle of orange gold, wears an Elizabethan ruff tipped 

 with emeralds ; another, a still broader ruff brightening 

 gradually to sparkling amethysts at the outer rim. 

 The black head of another is seen, half-hidden through 

 a haze of pale blues and browns. One or two carry 

 tails of honest feathers of which, for length, an old 

 cock pheasant might feel proud. In another the only 

 apology for tail feathers visible when the wings are 

 closed are two stiff little wires curled in circles in 

 opposite directions. 



Another, more wonderful, perhaps, than all, of 

 which there are specimens in the Museum, but which 

 is as yet too rare and precious for exposure to the 

 bleaching effects of sunlight in a glass case (the King 

 of Saxony's Bird of Paradise), carries on its head two 



