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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: BER-BLA |
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BIRDS OF PARADISE , a group of passerine birds inhabiting New Guinea
nectar
flowers
late
pile
bright straw colour above, and a brilliant emerald green beneath. From under the shoulders on each side springs a dense tuft of golden-orange plumes, about 2 ft. in length, which the bird can raise at pleasure, so as to enclose the greater part of its body
two centre tail feathers attain a length of 34 in., and, being destitute of webs, have a thin wire-like appearance. This splendid plumage, however, belongs only to the adult males, the females being exceedingly plain birds of a nearly uniform dusky brown colour, and possessing neither plumes nor lengthened tail feathers. The young males at first resemble the females, and it is only after the fourth moulting, according to A. R. Wallace, who has studied those birds in their native haunts, that they assume the perfect plumage of their sex, which, however, they retain permanently afterwards, and not during the breeding season only as was formerly supposed. At that season the males assemble, in numbers varying from twelve to twenty, on certain trees, and there disport themselves, so as to display their magnificent plumes in presence of the females. Wallace in his Malay Archipelago, vol. ii., thus describes the attitude of the male birds at one of those " sacaleli," or dancing parties, as the natives call
pale brown tint of the finely-divided and softly-waving points; the whole bird is then overshadowed by them, the crouching body
glory
graceful antics, he shoots them, one after the other, with blunt arrows, for the purpose of stunning and bringing them to the ground without drawing blood, which would injure their plumage; and so eager are those birds in their courtship that almost all the males are thus brought down before the danger is perceived. The natives in preparing the skins remove both feet and wings, so as to give more prominence to the commercially valuable tuft of plumes. They also remove the skull, and the skin is then dried in a smoky hut. The great emerald bird, so far as yet known, is only found in the Aru Islands. The lesser bird of paradise (Paradisea minor), though smaller in size and somewhat less brilliant in plumage, in other respects closely resembles the preceding species. It is also more common, and much more widely distributed, being found throughout New Guinea
as the " twelve-wired " (Seleucides alba), its delicate yellow plumes, twelve of which are transformed into wire-like bristles nearly a foot long, affording a striking contrast to the dark metallic tints of the rest of its plumage. (A. N.) End of Article: BIRDS OF PARADISE If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
<a href="http://jcsm.org/StudyCenter/Encyclopedia/BER_BLA/BIRDS_OF_PARADISE.html"> BIRDS OF PARADISE </a> |
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