BIRD OF PARADISE. 



Paradisea. 



PLATE VIII. BIRD OF PARADISE. 



THESE superb animals, scarcely equalled in beauty by 

 any of the feathered tribe, have become the general favor- 

 ites, for ornamental purposes, wherever they are known 

 or can be obtained. In the countries which they inhabit, 

 they are used to adorn the head-dress ; and the Japanese, 

 Chinese, and Persians, import them for the same purpose. 

 Among the latter, the principal people attach their plu- 

 mage not only to their own turbans, but to the housings 

 and harness of their horses, and it is not long since a pas- 

 sion existed for them among the fair of our own country. 

 Their superior beauty renders them interesting, and much 

 has been done to acquire a knowledge of their habits, cha- 

 racter, and varieties, but the search is attended with 

 almost insurmountable difficulties. Confined almost en- 

 tirely to a few islands in the Indian Ocean, and never 

 venturing many degrees from the equator, they are not 

 easily found alive, except by the natives of these islands ; 

 and as they cannot be preserved alive by art, we receive 

 only their dried and mutilated skins. 



It is somewhat singular that the Indian, as well as the 

 European nations, have all designated these birds by 

 names which imply a celestial origin ; and among the 

 former, a notion seems to have once prevailed, that they 

 were really supernatural. In the opinion of DR. SHAW, 

 this idea has been produced by their transcendent beauty, 

 and the singular arrangement and delicacy of their 

 plumage. 



Naturalists differ in opinion as to the number of specie.^ 

 into which this genus is divided. GMELIN enumerates 



