182 LECTURE V. 



to live chiefly on the larger kind of Butterflies 

 and Moths. They are the peculiar natives of the 

 Philippine and other Indian islands, and the 

 reason of the old supposition of their vi^anting 

 legs was owing to these parts having been gener- 

 ally cut off by the natives before they sold the 

 skins to the Europeans. Several of the most ele- 

 gant species of the genus Paradisea, have lately 

 been engraved in a most magnificent manner in a 

 French work on the subject by Audebert and his 

 associates ; but it must be confessed that they 

 neither seem to have been copied from capital 

 specimens, nor can they be said to exhibit with 

 sufficient effect the peculiar splendor and elegance 

 so remarkable in the birds of this genus. A 

 highly learned dissertation on the genus Paradisea 

 may be found in the additions to Mr. Pennant's 

 Indian Zoology, by the late Dr. Reinhold Forster, 

 together with an elaborate and satisfactory dis^ 

 quisition relative to the fabulous Phoenix of an- 

 tiquity, to which these birds have been sometimes 

 supposed to bear a kind of affinity. 



The beautiful genus Alcedo or Kingfisher has 

 a strait, strong, very sharp pointed beakj with a 

 very short tongue 3 legs and feet extremely shorty 



