520 NATURAL HISTORY OF BIRDS. 



delicate straw-yellow, the feathers being short and close set, so as to resemble plush or 

 velvet ; the lower part of the throat up to the eye is clothed with scaly feathers of an 

 emerald green color, and with a rich metallic gloss, and velvety plumes of a still 

 deeper green extend in a band across the forehead and chin as far as the eye, which 

 is bright yellow. The beak is pale lead-blue, and the feet, which are rather large and 

 very strong and well formed, are of a pale ashy pink. The two middle feathers of 

 the tail have no webs, except a very small one at the base and at the extreme tip, 

 forming wire-like cirri, which spread out in an elegant double curve, and vary from 

 twenty-four to thirty-four inches long. From each side of the body, beneath the 

 wings, springs a dense tuft of long and delicate plumes, sometimes two feet in length, 

 of the most intense golden orange color, and very glossy, but changing towards the 

 tips into a pale brown. This tuft of plumage can be elevated and spread out at 

 pleasure, so as almost to conceal the body of the bird. These splendid ornaments are 

 entirely confined to the male sex, while the female is really a very plain and ordinary- 

 looking bird of a uniform coffee-brown color which never changes ; neither does she 

 possess the long tail wires, nor a single yellow or green feather about the head. The 

 young males of the first year exactly resemble the females. 



This species is confined to the Aru Islands, a small group of islands close to New 

 Guinea, where their loud and shrill cries, " wawk, wawk, wawk wok, wok, wok," 

 form the most prominent and characteristic animal sound. In May, when they are in 

 full plumage, the males assemble early in the morning to exhibit themselves, raising 

 up their wings, stretching out their necks, and elevating their exquisite plumes, which 

 are kept in a continual vibration. Between whiles they fly across from branch to 

 branch in great excitement, so that the whole tree is filled with waving plumes, in 

 every variety of attitude and motion. This habit enables the natives to obtain speci- 

 mens with comparative ease. As soon as they find that the birds have fixed upon a 

 tree on which to assemble, they build a little shelter of palm leaves in a convenient 

 place among the branches, and the hunter ensconces himself in it before daylight, 

 armed with his bow and a number of arrows terminating in a round knob. A boy 

 waits at the foot of the tree, and when the birds come at sunrise, and a sufficient 

 number have assembled, and have begun to dance, the hunter shoots with his blunt 

 arrow so strongly as to stun the bird, which drops down, and is secured and killed by 

 the boy without its plumage being injured by a drop of blood. The rest take no 

 notice, and fall one after another till some of them take the alarm. 



The red bird-of-Paradise (P. sanguinea), represented in the accompanying cut, 

 resembles the foregoing species very much, but the side plumes are shorter, and instead 

 of being yellow are rich crimson, and the yellow of the head pervades the back and 

 forms a yellow band across the breast between the green and the brown ; the two 

 middle tail-feathers have the narrow webs curved upon themselves like a split quill. 

 This species, which is confined to the Waigiou Islands at the western extremity of 

 New Guinea, is not shot with arrows, but snared in a very ingenious manner. 



The king bird-of-Paradise (Cicinnurus regius) is the lower figure on the plate. 

 It is quite small, about six inches and a half long. It is of a rich glossy crimson, 

 with a broad band of metallic green across the breast, dividing the red of the throat 

 from the silky white of the rest of the under surface. From each side springs a fan- 

 shaped tuft of ashy feathers tipped with green, which can be raised and spread out, 

 as in the drawing, and the middle tail-feathers are modified into very slender wire- 

 like shafts, nearly as long as the bird itself, each of which bears at the extremity, on 



