480 



BIRDS OF PARADISE. 



repetition, how far each must modify the swimming 

 or floating character, which is the principal one of 

 this class. 



They have the sternum elongated, varying in 

 breadth, narrower in the middle than at the extre- 

 mities. The sternal keel is well developed, but 

 usually lower than the width of half the sternum. 

 The lower edge of the keel is sometimes convex, 

 sometimes straight, and the anterior one generally 

 concave, and in some of the species there is a cavity 

 at the base of the crest, in which a duplicature of the 

 trachea is lodged. The coracoids arc never very 

 long ; they are large at their bases, and rather firmly 

 attached to the sternum. 



There are seven or eight ribs (in some cases nine) 

 on each side of the sternum, and the posterior part of 

 that bone is generally divided by notches, though the 

 heads of the processes are so much produced as nearly 

 to meet each other. The clavicle is of moderate 

 length, and well arched, and the shoulder bones rather 

 slender, and arched through the whole extent. The 

 general character is that of having the bones of the 

 shoulder much more exclusively supported from ^ the 

 sternum than is the case in the wading birds. The 

 following figures of the sternal apparatus of the 

 nyroca pochard, or white-eyed duck, may be taken 

 as a specimen. 



White-eyed Pochard. 



In these sections we have taken a rapid glance at 

 the general structure of birds, and those characters 

 which distinguish them from the other classes of 

 vertebrated animals ; and we have entered rather 

 more minutely into those peculiarities of their three 

 grand structures, the bill, the feet, and the wings, 

 upon which, singly or jointly, the leading differences 

 of their habits in a great measure depend. It would 

 now remain to investigate their relations to the rest 

 of nature in locality and in season ; but as this part 

 of the subject involves the knowledge also of the 

 natural history of localities and of seasons, it is of too 

 general a nature for being made a specific portion ol 

 the natural history of birds, though they cannot be 

 known to the full extent without a knowledge of it, 

 neither can it be understood to the full extent without 

 a knowledge of them. Nature is one workmanship 

 of one Author, and he who wishes to know any sin- 

 gle part well, must lay the foundation in some general 

 knowledge of the whole. 



BIRDS OF PARADISE (Paradisea). A genus 

 of birds belonging to the sub-order or group Coni- 

 rostres, of Cuvier's order Passents ; and, from the 

 manner of their feeding, to the natural order Omni- 

 vora. Their generic characters are : The bill of 



nodrrate six.o, four-sided, straight in its general line, 

 jut arched in the culmcn, and slightly hooked at the 

 tip of the upper mandible, in which there is either no 

 lotch, or a mere rudiment; lower mandible straight, 

 and the tomia closing for the whole length of the bill ; 

 the nostrils basal and lateral, open, but concealed 

 among the feathers at the base of the bill, which is 

 without any naked skin. The tarsi and toes are 

 stout ; the latter, three to the front and one behind ; 

 the middle toe shorter than the tarsus, the outer 

 united to it at its base, and the inner joined half the 

 length of the first phalanx, the hind toe larger and 

 stronger than the others. The first five quills of the 

 wings are nearly of equal length, and the sixth or 

 seventh usually the longest. 



As the skins of these birds, deprived of the feet, 

 the wings, and the tail, have long formed an article of 

 export from those countries in which they are found, 

 they were known in Europe in that mutilated state 

 long before any of them had been seen alive, or their 

 manners were at all known. In this state they do not 

 bear much resemblance to an ordinary bird, at least 

 in any part except the bill, head, neck, and shoulders, 

 for the rest of the body is hidden by supplemental 

 feathers issuing from the flanks, the shoulders, or both, 

 which are so loose, light, and airy toward their points, 

 that they bear (in as fur as that which is solid matter, 

 however finely divided, can have a resemblance to 

 light) some resemblance to the tails of comets. The 

 feathers, which are not thus produced, especially those 

 about the insertion of the upper mandible, are re- 

 markable for their velvety texture, and the beauty of 

 their metallic reflections ; and with this fineness of 

 gloss, and richness of tint and texture in the part 

 which was like a bird, and the substitution of these 

 curiously produced feathers, in place of all the ordi- 

 nary organs of locomotion, either on the ground or in 

 the air, it was perhaps not much to be wondered at, 

 in those early days, when foreign lands were new 

 and little known, and romance and marvel were the 

 order of the time, that these birds should have been 

 supposed to whisk about like meteors in the bright 

 beams of the equinoctial sun, without the usual attri- 

 butes of wings, or that they should have been sup- 

 posed to dwell in the air, and live upon the nectar of 

 those flowers, which, in the climates where the birds 

 are native, twine their beautiful garlands and festoons 

 to the very tops of the trees. 



It was from this supposed aerial habitation, and all 

 but etherial food, that these creatures obtained their 

 somewhat inappropriate name of birds of paradise ; 

 and their elevation above the dull earth, and absti- 

 nence from all the more gross ways of life which its 

 more humble tenants require, have been the subject 

 of many an eloquent and elaborate descant. 



But it is provoking to the inventors of those fancy- 

 wrought marvels of nature, who, like the eye of the 

 sleepless, people the dark with phantoms of their own 

 creation,. and are enabled to do so, just because it is 

 the dark, that truth comes with her torch, and they 

 vanish ; and it is sometimes still more provoking, mat 

 the torch is not sufficient to reveal those real wonders 

 of nature which were concealed by the darkness 

 which admitted the fictitious ones ; and thus we are 

 reduced to that vexatious twilight, which is too light 

 for fancy, and too dark for fact. This is that " little 

 learning" which, on all subjects, but especially in 

 natural history, is truly a " dangerous thing." It 

 resembles, in the progress of knowledge, thut stage 



