Wingless and Tailless Birds . ISO 
Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall , published 1602, gives 
an account of the various sea-fowl found in that 
country:— 
“Amongst which, jackdaw (the second slander of our country) shall' 
pass for company, as frequenting their haunts, though not their 
diet. I mean not the common daw, but one peculiar to Cornwall, and 
there-through termed a Cornish chough: his bill is sharp, long, and 
red, his legs of the same colour, his feathers black, his conditions, when 
he is kept tame, ungracious, in filching and hiding of money, and such 
short ends, and somewhat dangerous in carrying sticks of fire.” (Page- 
110, ed. Tonkin, 1811.) 
Such an incendiary proceeding as these historians refer 
to might have occasionally happened, but it could not 
have been of frequent occurrence. 
One of the earliest descriptions of the Bird of Para¬ 
dise is given in the voyage of Magalhanes, or Bird of 
Magellan, the celebrated explorer, in 1521: — Paradise. 
“ The king of Bachian, one of the Molucca Islands, sent two dead 
birds preserved, which were of extraordinary beauty. In size, they 
were not larger than the thrush: the head was small, with a long bill ; 
the legs were of the thickness of a common quill, and a span in length ; 
the tail resembled that of the thrush; they had no wings, but in the 
place where wings usually are, they had tufts of long feathers, of 
different colours; all the other feathers were dark. The inhabitants of 
the Moluccas had a tradition that this bird came from Paradise, and 
they called it bolondinatct, which signifies the ‘ bird of Bod.’ Gomara 
relates some marvellous things concerning this bird and that it was- 
called mamucos .” (. Burney's Travels , p. 105.) 
If the law of compensation is not universally carried 
out in the animal kingdom, it certainly appears to be in 
the case of the Bird of Paradise. The existence of this 
bird, according to all accounts, must be most unhappy; 
but perhaps the consciousness of its surpassing beauty 
consoles it for the want of personal comfort. 
The writer quoted above mentions the Bird of Paradise 
as possessing legs, but in later times they were supposed 
