444 



[chap, XXXI. 



the end of this wire is webbed ou the outer side only, and 

 coloured of a fine nioUillic green, and being curled spirally 

 inwards form a pair of elegant glittering buttons, hanging 

 five inches below the body, and the same distance apart. 

 These two ornaments, the breast fans and the spiral 

 tipped tail wires, are altogether unique, not occurring on 

 any other species of the eight thousand diflerent birds 

 that are known to exist upon the earth ; and, combined 

 with tlie most exqidsite bciiuty of plumnge, render this 

 one of the most perfectly lovely of the many lovely pro- 

 ductions of nature. My transports of admiration and 

 delight quite amused my Aru hosts, who saw uotliiiig 

 more in the "Biirong raja" than we do in the robin or 

 tlie goldfinch.^ 



Thus one of my objects in coming to the far East was 

 accomplished. I had obtained a specimen of the King 

 Bird of Paradise (Paradisea regia), which had been de- 

 scribed by linnjeus from skins preserved in a mutilated 

 state by the natives. I knew how few Europeans had 

 ever beheld the perfect little oi-gauism I now gazed upon, 

 and how very imperfectly it was still known in Enrope. 

 The emotions excited in the minds of a naturalist, who has 

 long desired to see the actual thing wliich he has hitherto 

 known only by description, drawing, or badly-preserved 

 external covering — especially when that thing is of siu:- 

 passing rarity and beauty, require the poetic faculty fully 

 to express them. Tlie remote island in which I found 

 myself situated, in an almost unvisitcd sea, far from the 

 tracks of mei'chant lleets and navies ; the wild luxuriant 

 tropical forest, which stretched far away on every side ; 

 the rude uncultured savages w^ho gathered round me, — all 

 had their influence in detcnnining the emotions with which 

 I gazed upon tliis ** thing of beauty." 1 thought of the 

 long ages of the past, during which the successive gene- 

 rations of this little creature had run their course — ^}'ear 

 by year being bom, and li\ing and dying amid these 

 dark and gloomy woods, with no intelligent eye to gaze 

 upon their loveliness ; to all appearance such a wanton 

 waste of beauty. Such ideas excite a feeling of melan- 



1 Sfto tlb« upper GctLre oti Ptaic at commencemeut of CLaptui 

 XXXVIII. 



