BIRDS OF PARADISE. 
121 
though not so violent nor of so long continuance as 
in the more extended lands within the tropics ; and 
the fervent heat of the rainless period produces even- 
tually a temporary suspension of animal and vegetable 
action, so that the birds are forced to seek a moister 
atmosphere, where their food may still be found. At 
these places, says an amusing and elegant writer, where 
the earth and the upper part of the forest are parched, 
and the ardour of the unclouded sun continues to beat, 
there is a constant rarefaction, and consequent ascent of 
the whole mass of the atmosphere ; and in consequence 
of this the winds from the more humid surfaces 
must blow towards those parched places with velocities 
proportional to the differences between the one and 
the other. It is this which produces the sea- 
sonal winds of the tropical countries, and it is this, 
acted on by the changing declination of the sun, which 
produces the changing monsoons or alternations of the 
tropical seasons. 
AYhen the forest, which is the haunt of the Paradise 
Birds, at any particular time becomes parched, their 
food lessens, and they are compelled to be more on the 
wing in their search after it. But on w^hich side soever 
there then happens to be a place more humid and 
more abounding in those creatures on which they feed, 
and which on this account is better suited to them for 
the time, there is a wind which blows from that side 
toward the place which is parched and heated, and 
the action of that wind upon their flocculent feathers 
turns them round on their centres of gravity like 
weathercocks ; their heads are, as they fly, turned to 
the wind, and their progress is of course against its 
