248 
DANCING-PARTIES. 
clothed, the males assemble at early morning to join in what the 
natives call their ' sacaleli,' or dancing-parties. For this purpose they 
select a tree with spreading branches, and large but scattered leaves ; 
and here, having taken up their stations, they raise their wings, extend 
their necks, and elevate their glowing plumes, keeping them in a con- 
tinual vibration. At intervals they fly across from branch to branch, 
apparently in a state of great excitement, until the whole tree seems 
alive with shifting colours. This curious habit enables the natives to 
capture specimens with considerable facility. Having marked the tree 
on which the birds are wont to assemble, they build a bower or arbour 
of palm leaves in a convenient place among the branches. There, 
before daylight, the hunter takes up his position, armed with his bow 
and a number of arrows terminating in a round knob. A boy is placed 
at the foot of the tree ; and when the birds make their appearance, and 
prepare for their morning exhibition, the hunter discharges his blunt 
arrow with sufficient force to stun his victim, which drops down, and 
is secured and killed by the boy without injury to the beautiful 
plumage. This device is repeated until the dancing-party take alarm, 
and fly away to some securer spot." 
There is so great a charm about these birds that we are tempted to 
linger in their company yet a while. Our naturalists have evidently 
found a difficulty in inventing for them a suitable nomenclature ; one 
which should to some extent indicate their unrivalled beauty. Thus 
we have the superb, the golden, the incomparable, the magnificent; the 
standard-wing, the twelve-wired, the scale-breasted, the long-tailed, 
tlie sun gem, the flycatchers, and many another of which our limits 
forbid our attempting a description, though some of them are por- 
trayed by our artist with characteristic delicacy and truth. Whether 
a zoological Paris would give the golden apple to either of these in 
particular, may well be doubted. Far easier was it for the Trojan 
shepherd on Mount Ida to determine between the respective claims of 
the three goddesses than it would be for him to pronounce judgment 
in a competition of paradise-birds. We have stood before the specimens 
which light up a dark cabinet in the British Museum, and have felt it 
