THE LIVING WORLD. 
287 
genus heliangelos. It lias all the charms of novelty to recommend it, and it 
stands alone, too, among its congeners, no other member of the genus similarly 
colored having been discovered up to the present time. The throat vies with 
the radiant topaz, while the band on the forehead rivals in brilliancy the frontlet 
of every other species.” On account of the remarkable beauty of this little 
feathered gem, thousands are killed every year by means of blow-guns, and 
their skins sent to all parts of the world and used for ornamental purposes. 
BIRDS OF PARADISE. 
As the humming-bird is found only on the Western Continent, nature has 
compensated for this seeming partiality by giving to the eastern world a species 
which have received the very appropriate designation of Birds of Paradise , no other 
expression being 
discoverable that 
would convey so 
excellent an idea 
of their transcen¬ 
dent, yes, mar¬ 
vellous beauty. 
It may at first 
glance appear 
somewhat singu¬ 
lar that these 
charming crea¬ 
tures should be 
limited to not trouser or puff eeg, and scimetar biuu. 
only a small 
district, but that this circumscribed region should be at once the wildest and most 
inaccessible, and therefore least liable to come under the dominion of civilized 
man. But this seems a wise provision, when we consider with what cruelty and 
reckless disregard men destroy the most beautiful 
birds to satisfy the condemnable pride of the age. 
Every lady’s hat must be decorated with the head or 
wing of some forest warbler or animated sunbeam, while 
the pseudo-naturalist is not less remorseless in estab¬ 
lishing his collection ; so with net, trap, blow-gun, arrow, 
bird-lime and shot, the destruction goes on, and every 
year the woods are less resonant, the flashing luminaries 
of lambent wings are fewer, and melody that once woke 
the echoes over upland, meadow and deep tangled forest 
is dying away, until it is now like the strains from an 
instrument with nearly all the strings broken. 
Fortunately, therefore, the most beautiful birds have 
„ their haunts in the wildest districts of the tropical world, 
BOLD HONEY-SUCKER. . . , , J . . r AT A . ,, ’ 
and it is m the unexplored interior 01 New Guinea that 
the most exquisite of sun-birds are to be found. The species, however, are not 
numerous, and this fact, added to the deep seclusion of their unfamiliar haunts, 
has prevented such study of their habits as would afford the knowledge all 
naturalists are anxious to possess, considering, as they do, this genera to be 
the most interesting of bird creation. 
