252 
RANGE OF THE PA.RAD1SE BIRDS. 
Oi" what say you to the Superb, of which it is written that the 
ground colour of his plumage is an intense black, but with beautiful 
bronze reflections on the neck, and the whole head scaled with feathers 
of brilliant metallic green and blue ? His breast carries a glossy shield 
of a pure bluish-green colour; and from the back of the neck rises 
another but larger shield, of a velvety black colour, glossed with bronze 
and purple. Half an inch longer than the wing are the outermost 
feathers of this singular but beautiful appendage, which, when raised, 
must give the bird a peculiarly characteristic aspect. The superb is 
only known by the mutilated skins which reach Europe. He inhabits 
the interior of the northern peninsula of New Guinea. 
Betur pulchriori? Well, do we bestow the laurel on the Red bird, 
with his rich crimson lateral plumes, and ribbon -like middle tail- 
feathers, with their graceful double curve, and the rich metallic green 
of his throbbing throat, and the little double crest of scaly feathei*s 
on his head ? Or the Long-tailed, with his dark velvety plumage, 
shining with irradiations of purple and bronze, and superb tail more 
than two feet long, shining with a vivid opalescent blue, like the sea 
in a coral latjoon ? 
The birds of paradise, so far as they are yet known, are grouped 
into eighteen species — namely, the great paradise, the lesser paradise, 
the red paradise, the king paradise, the magnificent, the red magnifi- 
cent, the superb, the golden paradise, the standard-wing, the long-tailed 
paradise, the twelve-wired paradise, the scale-breasted paradise. Prince 
Albert's paradise, the rifle-bird, the Victorian rifle-bird, the paradise 
pie, the carunculated paradise pie, and the paradise oriole. Of these 
eighteen species, eleven are known to inhabit New Guinea, and eight 
are entirely confined to it and the adjacent island of Salwatt}*. Com- 
menting upon this fact, Mr. Wallace is led to remark that Nature seems 
to have taken jealous precautions that these her choicest treasures 
should not be made too common, and thus be undervalued. "The 
northern coast of New Guinea," he adds, " is exposed to tlie full swell 
of the Pacific Ocean, and is rugged and harbourless. The country is all 
rocky and mountainous, covered everywhere with dense forests, offering 
