388 THE BIRLS OF PARADISE. [ch. xxxvm. 



Birds of the Sun ; while tlie learned Dutchmen, who 

 wrote in Latin, called them " Avis paradiseus," or Para- 

 dise Bird. John van Linschoten gives these names in 

 1598, and tells us that no one has seen these birds alive, 

 for they live in the air, always turning towards the sun, 

 and never lighting on the earth till they die ; for they 

 have neither feet nor wings, as, he adds, may be seen by 

 the birds carried to India, and sometimes to Holland, but 

 being very costly they were then rarely seen in Europe. 

 More than a hundred years later Mr. William Funnel, 

 who accompanied Dampier, and wrote an account of the 

 voyage, saw specimens at Amboyna, and was told that 

 they came to Banda to eat nutmegs, which intoxicated 

 them and made them fall down senseless, when they were 

 killed by ants. Down to 1760, when Linnaius named the 

 largest species, Paradisea apoda (the footless Paradise Bird), 

 no perfect specimen had been seen in Europe, and abso- 

 lutely nothing was known about them. And even now, 

 a hundred years later, most books state that they migrate 

 annually to Ternate, Banda, and Amboyna ; whereas the 

 fact is, that they are as completely unknown in those 

 islands in a wild state as they are in England. Linnaeus 

 was also acquainted with a small species, which he named 

 Paradisea regia (the King Bird of Paradise), and since 

 then nine or ten others have been named, all of which 

 were first described from skins preserved by the savages of 



