270 



The Bird 



head. They are twice (or more) the length of the body, 

 and, far from being feather-like, they are best described 

 as a series of thirty or forty tiny flags of blue enamel, 

 each separate, each hanging pendent from the main 

 shaft (Fig. 212). It would seem as if Nature herself 

 could go no farther in unusual decoration than this. 



FIG. 212. King of Saxony Bird of Paradise. (From a photograph provided 

 by the American Museum of Natural History.) 



In the Double-crested Pigeon of Australia the core 

 or fleshy covering of the beak is completely feathered; 

 while some of the birds known as plantain-eaters are 

 feathered to the very tip of the short beak with plumes 

 of delicate green, tipped with white. The extreme of 

 feathering is shown by the Cock-of-the-Rock, in which 



