96 How Theories are Mamifactured 



web at their extremities : the Great Bird has a dense tuft 

 of golden-orange plumes beneath the wings, two feet in 

 length : the Red Bird has the two middle tail feathers 

 transformed into stiff black ribands twenty-two inches 

 long, forming a graceful double curve : the Magnificent 

 Bird has a mantle of straw yellow springing from the 

 nape of the neck : the Superb Bird a bluish green shield 

 on the breast and a large shield of velvety black from 

 the back of the head. These are but a few; but as 

 Birds of Paradise frequent tropical forests I prefer to 

 seek for traces of the same sort of thing among the 

 denizens of our own woods. The nearest akin of these 

 to the Paradise group are the Starlings and Crow tribe, 

 and amongst them we find a distant reflection of the 

 brilliant metallic colours which their far off rela- 

 tives affect, and a modest imitation of their variety of 

 decorative device. The Starling itself is one of the 

 handsomest of our British birds, its dark plumage glossy 

 with purple and green reflections ; its rose-coloured 

 cousin, the Pastor, has the neck and throat violet-black, 

 the wings and tail metallic greenish black, while the back 

 and breast are tinted with the hue whence it takes its 

 name. The Crows, closely allied to the Starlings, in 

 spite of the deep mourning into which their best-known 

 representatives have permanently gone, exhibit the same 

 tendency, in the lustrous reflections of their feathers ; 

 the Magpie has developed 1 a long tail iridescent with 

 greenish bronze, and has glossed the dark portion of its 

 remaining plumage with green and violet : while its next 

 of kin the Jay, discarding metallic lustres altogether, 

 supplies their place by the elegant crest of the head, the 

 delicate wine-brown of the nape and back, the beautiful 

 arrangement in black, white, and blue on the winglet 

 and greater coverts. 



Something of the same sort is to be seen amongst the 

 Woodpeckers. They again as a family have a taste for 

 splendour, but it is a splendour quite distinct in kind 

 from that of the Corvidce^ and quite distinct in its 

 developments among Woodpeckers themselves. The 



