GREAT PARADISE-BIRD. 483 



in those organs. It was also believed for some 

 time that this bird never descended to the ground 

 till the time of its death, and that all which were 

 obtaitied had fallen from their aerial elevation 

 during the moments immediately preceding their 

 fate. It is a curious fact, that even Aldrovandus, 

 the most scientific and zealous naturalist of his 

 age, having seen only such specimens as had been 

 mutilated in the usual manner, accuses Pigafetta 

 of an audacious falshood in asserting that the bird 

 was naturally furnished with legs and feet. The 

 great Scaliger also, himself a naturalist, imagined 

 this bird to be footless. But if Aldrovandus, near 

 two hundred years ago, giving way for a moment 

 to popular prejudice, could thus support a vulgar 

 tradition, what shall we say to the highly cele- 

 brated Count de Buffon's having accidentally 

 fallen, in the midst of one of his own lofty flights, 

 into so enormous an error, in the latter part of the 

 all-illuminated eighteenth century? for of this he 

 stands accused by a German critic^. It is true 

 that in his history of the bird itself he delivers a 

 just statement of this particular^ but perhaps the 



* After all, it is perhaps but just to consider this error of BufFon 

 as a lapsus calami, and that he could hardly be supposed seriously 

 to mean that the Bird of Paradise had no legs. His expression is 

 as follows. De meme dans les oiseaux on trouve Tautruche, le 

 casoar, le dronte, le thouyou, &c. qui ne peuvent voler, et sont 

 r^duits a marcher; d'autres, comme les pingoins, les perroquets 

 de mer, &c. qui volent et nagent, mais ne peuvent marcher; 

 d'autres qui, comme les oiseaux de paradis, ne marchent ni le 

 pagent, et ne peuvent prendre de mouvement qu'en volant." 



Discours sur la nature des oiseaux. 



