CH. xxxviii.] THE BIRDS OF PdEADlSK 



549 



CHAPTER XXXYITL 



THE BIRDS OF PARADISE. 



AS many of lay journeys Tred-e made with the exjiress 

 object of obtaining 8i^)6citi>ons of the Birds of Pai-a- 

 dise, and learning something of their liabita and distri- 

 bution ; and being (as far as I am aware) the only 

 Englishman who has seen these wonderful binls in their 

 native forests, and obtained specimens of many of them, 

 I propose to give here, in a connected form, the result 

 of my observations and inquiries. 



When the earliest Enropoan voyagers reached the Mo- 

 luccas in searcli of cloves and nntniegf?, which were then 

 rare and precious spices, they Avere presented with the 

 dried skins of birils so strange and beautiful as to excite 

 the admiration even of those wealth-seeking rovers. The 

 Malay traders gave them the name of "Manuk dewata," 

 or God's birds ; and the Portuguese, finding that they had 

 no feet or wings, and not being able to learn anything 

 authentic about them, called them *' Passaa-os de Sol," or 

 Birds of the Sun ; while the learned Dutchmen, who 

 wrote in Liitin, ctdled them " Avis pamdisens," or Pai*a- 

 dise Bird. John van Linschoten gives these names in 

 1598, and tells m that no one has seen these birds ahve, 

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

 and never lighting on the eai'th tifl they die ; for they 

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

 the birds carried to India, and sometinies to Holland, bnt 

 being very costly they were then rarely seen in Europe, 

 More than a hnndred years later Mr. Wilharn Funnel, 

 who accompaniiid Uainpier, and wrote an account of the 

 voyage, saw specimens at Amboyna, and w^as tt>hl that 

 they came to Banda to eat nutmegs, which intoxicated 

 them and made them fall dowm senseless, when they were 

 killed by ants. Down tu 1760, when Linnaeus named the 

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

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



