308 NEJV GUINEA. [chap. 



and long-covetecl species of which he has hitherto only seen some 

 deformed and wretched caricature on the shelves of a museum, he 

 realises the inadequacy of superlatives. He can only feel that the 

 little creature that lies before him is perfect and without fault ; 

 so perfect indeed that, in spite of the rarity of his prize, he cannot 

 help wishing that he could give it back its life. 



The King -bird of Paradise {Cicinmirus rcgius), of which we 

 obtained numerous specimens during the Marchesas cruise in New 

 Guinea waters, is the most generally distributed of all the 

 Paradiseidce. As is always the case in the birds of this family, the 

 females and young males are alike, and of the most sober colouring, 

 — mouse-brown, with faint barring on the breast and abdomen ^ — 

 contrasting strongly with the brilliant plumage of the adult male, 

 in whom the entire upper surface is of a rich, glossy red shading 

 into orange on the head. An emerald green band crosses the 

 breast, below which the plumage is creamy white. But the chief 

 beauty of the bird lies, as in many of its kind, in the strange 

 development of the central tail-feathers and the tuft of sub-alar 

 plumes. The former are prolonged for five or six inches as grace- 

 fully-curved wires of extreme fineness, and terminate in brilliant 

 metallic green discs about the size of a sixpence. Concealed 

 beneath the wing, but capable of being expanded into fans of 

 wonderfully regular shape at will, are two greyish tufts of feathers, 

 tipped in the same way with glittering emerald. 



The gradual development of these singular and strikingi}' 

 beautiful tail-feathers we were able to trace in the admirable series 

 of skins we obtained. At first brown and of the same length as 

 the others, they gradually acquire a red tinge, and, when an inch 



^ Tins type of coloration in the female is adhered to, with more or less variation, 

 in all the birds of Paradise, with the exception of Paradisea and Paradigalla, a 

 curious fact when the great dissimilarity between the males is taken into considei'a- 

 tion. There is little enough resemblance between the Twelve-wired Bird of Paradise 

 and the New Guinea Rifle-bird {CrasiKdoj^liorct magnifica) in the male, but the females 

 are so much alike that by the plumage alone it is extremely difficult to distinguish 

 them. 



