242 
A PRESENT FOR AN EMPEROR. 
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place them in the fore part of earth's things of 
beaut3^ Is it not a wonder that they should 
have been created to inhabit for centuries 
the dense forests of remote islands, where 
no human eye could admire their splendour? 
The first record of them in the pages of 
European writers occui's in Pigafetta's nar- 
rative of Magellan's circumnavioration of the 
O O 
globe. The old voyager relates that the 
king of Barbian, an island to the south-west 
of Gilolo, gave to the Spaniai'ds a slave and 
nearly two hundred pounds of cloves as a 
present for the Emperor Charles Y. ; also 
" two most beautiful dead birds, about the 
size of a thrush, Avith small heads, long bills, 
legs a palm in length and as slender as a 
wi'iting-quill. Instead of proper wings, they 
have Ions feathers of different colours, like 
great ornamented plumes. The tail resem- 
bles that of a thrush. All the feathei-s, 
