CHAPTER ONE OF BEAUTIFUL BIRDS This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Scotty Smith. BEAUTIFUL BIRDS by Edmund Saluse Why Beautiful Birds Are Killed What beautiful things birds are! Can you think of any other creatures that are quite so beautiful? I know you will say butterflies. And perhaps it is a race between the birds and the butterflies, but I think the birds win it even here in England. Just think of the Kingfisher. That bird is like a little live chip of the blue sky, flying about all by itself and doing just what it likes. The sky blue butterfly is like that too, I know, but then it is a much smaller chip and does not shine in the sun in such a wonderful way as the Kingfisher does. Neither, I think, does the peacock butterfly or the red admiral or the painted lady or the greater or lesser tortoise shell. And besides, they none of them go so fast. Yes, all those butterflies are beautiful, very, very beautiful. But now, supposing they were all flying about in a field that a river was winding through, and supposing you were sitting there too amongst the daisies and the buttercups in the bright summer sunshine and looking at them and supposing all at once there was a little dancing dot of light far away down the river and that it came gleaming and gleaming along, getting nearer and nearer and keeping just in the middle all the time till it passed you like a sapphire sunbeam, like a star upon a bird's wings. Then I am sure you would look and look at it all the time it was coming and look and look after it all the time it was going away. And when at last it was quite gone, you would sit wondering, forgetting about the butterflies and thinking only of that starbird, that little Julie gem. But perhaps if you were to see a purple emperor sweeping along, ah, he is a very magnificent butterfly is the purple emperor. You can tell that from his name. But whether he is quite so magnificent as a starbird, for that is what we will call the kingfisher, well it is not so easy to decide. The birds and the butterflies are both beautiful. There is no doubt about that. Only this little book is about beautiful birds. Afterward there will be another one about beautiful butterflies. That will be quite fair to both. The birds then. We will talk about them. I am going to tell you about some of the most beautiful ones that there are and to describe them to you so that you will know something about what they are like. But perhaps you think that you know that already because you have seen them so that you could tell me what they are like. There is the starbird that we have been talking about. And then there is the thrush and the blackbird. What two more beautiful birds could you see than they as they hop about over the lawn of your garden in the early dewy morning.  It would be difficult surely to find a handsome a bird. But the thrush with his lovely speckled breast is just as handsome. Then the robin with his crimson breast and the little round ball of a body. What bird could be prettier? Or the chaffinch or greenfinch or linnet? Or the bullfinch?  Yes, he is the handsomest.   Whilst on his wings he has feathers of beautiful bright golden yellow. I think he must be the handsomest unless it is the brambling who is dressed all in russet and gold and then there is the yellow wag-tail. Could one think of a prettier little bird than he is unless one tried a good deal? To be a wag-tail at all is something but to be not only a wag-tail but yellow all over as well. That does make a pretty little bird. And I daresay you have seen him running about on your lawn too at the same time as the thrush and the blackbird and there is another bird, one that you do not see running or hopping over your lawn but flying over it, sometimes far above it when the sky is blue and the insects are high in the air sometimes just skimming it when it is dull and cloudy and the insects are flying low. You know what bird it is, I mean now. The swallow, I need not say how beautiful he is. So as you have seen all these pretty birds and a good many others too at least if you live in the country and not in London perhaps you think that there cannot be many or perhaps any that are so very much prettier. Ah, but do not be too sure about that. You must never think that because something is very beautiful there can be nothing still more beautiful. You may not be able to imagine anything more beautiful but that may be only because your imagination is not strong enough to do it. It may be a very good imagination in its way better than mine perhaps or great many other peoples but still it is not good enough. In fact there is not one of us who has an imagination which is good enough to do things like that. We could never have imagined birds which are still more beautiful than those we have been talking about. Indeed, we could never have imagined those that we have been talking about. Only Dame Nature has been able to imagine them both. She can imagine anything and the funny thing is that as she imagines it there it is just as if she had cut it out with a pair of scissors. Perhaps she does do that. She is a lady, Dame Nature, you know so she would know how to use a pair of scissors but what her scissors are like and how she uses them and what sort of stuff it is that she cuts things out of those are things which nobody knows. Only there are the birds not only the beautiful ones that you have seen but a very great many others which you have never seen and which are so very much more beautiful than the ones you have that if you were to see those beside them they would look quite... well, no, not ugly. Thrushes and black birds and swallows and robin red breasts could not look that but insignificant in comparison. Now it is about some of those birds the very beautiful birds of all the most beautiful ones in the whole world that I am going to tell you but all the while I am telling you you must remember that they these very beautiful birds do not sing whilst our birds the insignificant looking ones do so you must not think poorly of our birds because their colours are plain or even dingy I mean in comparison with these other ones for if they have not the great beauty of plumage they have the great beauty of song and perhaps you would not so very much mind growing a plain like a lark or nightingale which would not be so very very plain if you could sing like a lark or a nightingale as perhaps one day you will. Indeed I sometimes wish that those very beautiful birds were not quite so beautiful as they are you will think that a funny wish to have but there is a sensible reason for it which I will explain to you perhaps if they were not quite so beautiful not quite so many of them would be killed for strange as it may seem to you and I know it will seem strange it is just because the birds are beautiful that hundreds and hundreds yes and thousands and thousands of them are being killed every day yes it is quite true I wish it were not but I am sorry to say it is people kill the birds because they are beautiful but is not that cruel yes indeed it is very very cruel it is cruel for two reasons first because to kill them gives them pain secondly because their life is so happy can anything be happier than the life of a bird surely not only to fly just think how delightful that must be and then to be always living in green leafy palaces under the bright warm sun and the blue sky for I must tell you that these birds we are going to talk about live where these trees are always leafy the sun is always bright and the sky always blue so they are always happy even if a bird could be unhappy in winter which I am not at all sure about there is no winter there now the happier any creature is the more cruel it is to kill it and take that happiness away from it I am sure you will understand that if you were carrying a very heavy weight which tired you and made you stoop and gave you no pleasure at all and someone were to come and take it away from you you would not think that so very cruel you would have nothing now it is true but then all you had had was that weight which was so heavy and made you stoop but now if you were carrying a beautiful bunch of flowers which smelled sweetly and weighed just nothing at all and someone were to take that away you would think that cruel I am sure a bird's life is like that bunch of flowers how cruel then it must be to take it away from any bird we should think it very wrong if someone were to kill us yet it is not always a bunch of flowers that we are carrying so as it is cruel to kill the birds as they are not nearly so beautiful when they are dead as they are when they are alive and as the world is full of tender hearted women to love them and plead for them and to say do not kill them perhaps you will wonder why it is that they are killed I will tell you how it has come about when Dame Nature had imagined all her beautiful birds and then cut them out of that wonderful stuff of hers the stuff of life with her marvellous pair of scissors she said to her eldest daughter whose name is Truth now I will leave them and go away for a little for there are other places where I must imagine things and cut them out with my scissors Truth said do not leave the birds for there are men in the world with hard hearts and a film over their eyes they will see the birds but not their beauty because of the film and they will kill them because of their hearts which are like marble or rock or stone they are it is true said Dame Nature and indeed it was of some such material that I cut them out I had my reasons but you would never understand them so I shall not tell you what they were but there are not only my men in the world there are my women too I cut them out of something very different it was soft and yielding and that part that went to make the heart was like water like soft water I made them too to have influence over the men and I put no film over their eyes they will see how beautiful my birds are and they will know that they are more beautiful alive than dead and because of this and their soft hearts they will not kill them to the men they will say do not kill them and my beautiful birds will live women will spare them because they have pity and men because women ask them to and to make it still more certain see Yandor on that hill sits the goddess of pity she has come from heaven to help me and has promised to stay till I return it is from her that pity goes into all those hearts that have it and because she is a goddess she sends most of it to the hearts of women have no fear then for until the goddess of pity falls asleep my birds are safe but may she not fall asleep said truth but they in nature had hurried away with her scissors and was out of hearing as soon as she was gone there crept out of the dark cave where he had been hiding an ugly little mannequin who hated day nature and her daughter truth and did everything he could to spite them both their very names made him angry he was a demon really and as ugly as I say but he did not look ugly because nobody saw him all that people saw when they looked at him was a suit of clothes and this suit of clothes was so well made and so fashionable and fitted him so well that they always thought the ugly demon inside it was just what he ought to be so of course as everyone had different ideas as to what he ought to be he seemed different to different people one person looked at the clothes and thought him quite remarkable another one looked at them and thought him ordinary and commonplace and so on only everyone was pleased because whatever else he seemed he always seemed just what he ought to be so when two people both found that he was that they each of them thought that he looked the same to the other of course the clothes were enchanted really only nobody knew it and if anyone had been told that it was the clothes and not the demon inside them they were looking at he would not have believed it it was only day nature and her daughter truth who could look at those clothes and see the little demon inside them just as he really was that was why he hated them and he never liked to hear their names this ugly little demon crept up to the goddess of pity who looked at the clothes and was not even able to pity him and when he saw that he had her good opinion he began to repeat a sort of charm to send her to sleep for he knew that when once the goddess of pity was asleep he might do whatever he liked these were the words of the charm fashion fashion fashion give a little sneer fashion fashion fashion science makes it clear fashion fashion fashion a bird is not a bat fashion fashion fashion such a pretty hat under the influence of this drowsy charm which of course had no meaning in it whatever the goddess of pity began to nod and nodded and nodded till on the last line she was fast asleep with a pleased smile on her face then the wicked little demon took from one of the pockets in the suit of clothes that charmed everybody two little bottles that contained two different sorts of powders one hot like pepper and the other cold like ice but both of them so fine that they were quite invisible he took a pinch of the hot powder which was labelled vanity and blew it upon the heads of all the women and the instant it touched them they all looked pleased and you could see that they were thinking they looked though they talked in a very different way it was funny that they all looked pleased because a great many in fact most of them were plain not pretty and yet they looked pleased too as well as the others but you see it was all done by magic then from the other little bottle which was labelled apathy the demon took a pinch of the cold powder and blew it on the women's hearts and as soon as it fell on them they became frozen so that all the pity that had been in them before was frozen too frozen pity you know as of no good whatever you can be no more kind with it in that state than you can bathe in frozen water so now there was nothing but vanity in the women's heads and no pity in their hearts and as the goddess of pity was fast asleep it was not possible for any more to be put into them until she woke up nobody could tell when that would be gods and goddesses sometimes sleep for a long time and very soundly besides you know this was a charmed sleep so now what happened after the wicked little demon had behaved in this wicked way why the women whose hearts he had frozen began to kill the poor beautiful birds those birds that tame nature loved so and had taken such pains to keep alive I do not mean that they killed them themselves with their own hands no they did not do that for they had not enough time to go to the countries where the beautiful birds lived which were often a long way off as well as being very unhealthy you see they were wanted at home and so to have gone away from home to the countries to kill birds would have been selfish and one should never be that so instead of killing them themselves the women sent the men to kill them for them for they could be spared much better and if they should not come back they would not be nearly so much missed and the women said to the men kill the birds and tear off their wings their tails their bright breasts to sew into our hats or onto the sleeves and collars of our gowns and mantles kill them and bring them to us that you may think us even more lovely than you have done before when you compare our beauty with theirs and find that ours is the greater let us shine down the birds for they are conceded and think themselves our rivals then kill them kill, kill, kill, kill, kill them then the men whose hearts had always been hard and over whose eyes there was a film went forth into the world and began to kill the poor beautiful birds wherever they could find them everywhere the earth was stained with their blood and the air thick with floating feathers that had been torn from their poor wounded bodies it was full too of their frightened cries and of the wails of their starving young ones for their parents who were dead and could not feed them anymore for it is just at this time when the birds lay their eggs and rear their young ones that the plumage is most beautiful most exquisitely beautiful and it was just this most exquisitely beautiful plumage that the women whose hearts the wicked little demon had frozen wanted to put into their hats they knew that to get it the young fledgling birds must starve in their nests but they did not mind that now their hearts were frozen and the goddess of pity was asleep so the birds were killed and the lovely painted feathers that had lighted up whole forests or made a country beautiful were pressed close together into dark ugly boxes or things like boxes called crates large it is true but not quite so large as a forest or a country and then brought over the seas and ships to dark ugly houses where they were taken out and flung in their great heap on the floor soon they were sewn into hats which were set out in the windows of the milliner shops for the women with the frozen hearts to buy you may see such hats now any time you walk about the streets of London or Paris or Vienna if you go there for the goddess of pity is still sleeping she has not woken up yet there you will see them and outside the window looking at them sometimes in a great crowd you will see those poor women that the demon has treated so badly there they stand looking and looking ravenous hungry you would almost say they were longing to buy them even though they have new ones of the same sort on their head ah if they could see those birds as they looked when they were shot before they were dressed and cleaned and made to look so smart and fashionable if they could see them with the blood stains upon them the wet, warm drops running down over the bright breasts perhaps on to the little ones underneath them the poor broken wings dragging over the ground and trying to rise in the air through which they had once flown so easily the flapping, the struggling if they could see all this and much more that had been done that had to be done and before there was that nice gay, elegant shop window for them to look into would it not be different then would not the bane heads begin to think a little and the frozen hearts to melt no, I do not think so because of the ugly little demon in the correct suit of clothes they would look in at the window and go in at the door still and shall I tell you something it would be the same, just the same all those bright feathers in every one of the hats had been stripped not from the birds, but from the angels' wings those who could wear the one could wear the other and if angels were to come down here I should not wonder if angel hats were to get to be quite the fashion only first of course angels would have to come down here I do not think they are so very likely to and the worst of it is that not only the pretty women wear beautiful birds and their hats but the plain ones do too which makes so many more of them to be killed if it was only the pretty women who wore them it would not be quite so bad but the wicked little demon was much too clever to arrange it like that he did not wish any of the birds to escape and I cannot tell you how many millions of them would escape if only the pretty women were to wear their feathers but now how are the birds to be saved for we want them all to escape and how are the women to be saved that is another thing you know it is not their fault they were kind and pitiful till the wicked little demon blew his powder into their hearts it is his fault you may be angry with him as much as you like but you must not think of being angry with the women indeed you should be sorry for them more even than for the birds for it is much worse to be a woman with a frozen heart than to be a bird and be shot oh poor frozen hearted women who would be so kind and pitiful if only they were allowed to be if only the wicked little demon would go away the goddess of pity would wake up then is there no way of saving them both the poor birds and the poor women yes there is a way and it is you the children who are to find it out listen it is so simple all you have to do is ask these women these poor women not to wear the hats that have feathers that have birds' lives in them that they will not do so any more they will listen to you there is nobody else they would listen to but they will to you the children perhaps you think that funny listen and I will explain it when the wicked little demon blew his powder called apathy into the hearts of the women it froze them all up as I have told you but there was just one little spot in every one of their hearts they were not able to freeze that was the spot called motherly love which every woman has in her heart and which is the softest spot of all if only a little child presses it and especially if it is her own little child so I want you the little children who read this little book to press that spot and to save the birds from being killed nobody can do it but you nobody even can find that spot except you but you will find it directly and you are to press it in this way throw each one of you your arms around your mother's neck kiss her and ask her not to kill the birds not to wear the hats that make the birds be killed and if you do that and really mean what you say if you are really sorry for the birds and have real tears in your eyes or at least in your hearts then your mother will do as you have asked her for you will have pressed that spot that soft spot that spot that even the wicked little demon try as he might could not freeze could not make hard and as you press it the whole heart that has been frozen will become warm again and the power of the demon will go out of it and the goddess of pity will wake up you will do this will you not it is only asking and what can be easier than to ask something of your mother but you must make her promise never, never leave off asking until you have got her to promise and if some of you have mothers who do not kill birds who do not wear the hats and if they have sewn into them well it will do them no harm to promise too then they never will wear them and if they should never mean to wear them they will be all the more ready to promise not to only in that case you might put your arms around the neck of some other woman that you have seen wearing those hats and kiss her and ask her to promise and she will you will have touched that spot because you are a little child even though you are not her own little child perhaps you will remind her of a little child that was hers once now I'm going to tell you about some of the most beautiful birds there are in the world but you must remember that they are being killed so fast every day unless you get that promise from your mother very quickly there will soon be no more of them left as soon as she promises it will be all right but of course it will not be only your mother who will have promised but the mother of every other little girl all over the country and as the birds are only being killed to put into their hats they will be let alone now for now no more hats like that will be wanted no one will wear the hats that have birds lives sewn into them any more so the beautiful birds will go on living and flying about in the world and making it beautiful too you will have saved them you the children will have saved them and no grown-up person will have done anything to be more proud about I dare say a grown-up person would be more proud about what he had done even if it was nothing very particular but that is another matter now we will begin and as we come to one bird after another you shall make your mother promise not to wear it in her hat end of chapter 1 chapter 2 of beautiful birds this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recording are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Natalia Ciche beautiful birds by Edmund Syllows birds of paradise I will tell you about the birds of paradise you have heard of them perhaps and how beautiful they are but you may have thought that birds with a name like that did not live here at all for the emperor of China lived in China and if the emperor of China lived in China the birds of paradise ought one would think to live in paradise but that is not the case not now at any rate they live a very long way off it is true right over at the other side of the world but it is not quite so far off as paradise is no, it cannot be there that they live because if you were to leave England in a ship and sail always in the right direction you would come at last to the very place instead of coming right round to England again which is what you would do if you were to sail for paradise for you know, of course, that the earth is round but why then they are called birds of paradise if they live here on earth well, there are two ways of explaining it I will tell you first one and then the other and you can choose the way you like best the first way is this a long time ago but long after the little demon had crept out of his cave the early Portuguese voyagers whom your mother will tell you about when they came to the Molucas to get spices were shown the dried skins of beautiful birds which were called by the natives which means God's birds there were no wings or feet to the skins and the natives told the Portuguese that the birds had never had any but that they lived always in the air never coming down to settle on the earth and keeping themselves all the while turned towards the sun one would have thought they must have wanted wings at any rate to be always in the air but that is what the natives said so the Portuguese who did not quite know what to make out of it called them passados del sol which means sun birds or birds of the sun because of their always turning towards him some time after that a learned Dutchman who wrote in Latin just think called these birds aves paradise paradise birds or birds of paradise and he told everyone that they had never been seen alive by anybody but only after they had fallen down dead out of the clouds when they were picked up without wings or feet and still lying with their heads towards the sun in the way that they have fallen so after that these wonderful birds were always called birds of paradise that is one way of explaining how they got their names but the other way and perhaps you will think it a little more probable is this once the birds of paradise were really birds of paradise for they lived there and were ever so much more beautiful than they are now though perhaps if you were to see them flying about in their native forests you would hardly believe that's possible that is because you cannot imagine how beautiful real birds of paradise are for these birds of paradise were not more beautiful than the other ones that lived there all were as beautiful as each other though in different ways and it was just that which made these birds of paradise discontented if we go down to earth that day the birds of all the world will do homage to us on account of our superior beauty for there will be none to equal us so we shall reign over them and be their king here we are only like all the others none of them fly to the tree on which we are sitting to do us homage do not be foolish set the tree for in paradise trees and all can speak the homage which you desire you would soon wary of and the beauty which you enjoy here would on earth be only a pain to you for it would remind you of the paradise you had left but could never enter again for those who once leave paradise can never more return to it therefore be wise and stay for if you go you will repent but then it will be too late and all the birds around said stay and then they raised their voices which were lovier than you can imagine in a song of joy of joy that they were in paradise and not on earth and the birds of paradise sang too their voices were as sweet as any but they had envy and discontent in their hearts our singing cannot be surpassed it is true, thought they but it is equaled by that of every other bird we sing in a chorus immediately it would not be so on earth we should be prima donnas there your mother will tell you what a prima donna is as well as what doing homage means so when the song was over they flew to the phoenix who was the most important and powerful bird of all the birds that were in paradise I have told you that all the birds were their equal so they were only you see the phoenix was a little more equal than the others one cannot be a phoenix for nothing now it was only the phoenix who could open the gate of paradise and let any bird in or out of it he was not obliged to let them in and there were very few birds who were not there already that he ever did let in many and many a bird flattered and flattered outside the door that had to fly away again but if a bird that was in paradise wanted to go out of it then the phoenix had to open the door and let it out because if it had stayed it would have been discontented and birds that were discontented cannot stay in paradise it would not be a paradise for long if they could so when the birds of paradise went to the phoenix let us out for we are tired of being here where all are equal and wish to be kings and prima donnas on earth he had to do it only he warned them as the tree had done that if they once left paradise they could never come back to it again the door of paradise he said maybe passed through twice but only entered once when you pass through it the second time it is to go out of it and when you are once out of it out of it you must remain you can never come in again you can only flutter at the gate we shall never do that set the proud birds of paradise we shall stay down on earth and be the kings and prima donnas among the other birds so the phoenix let them out and they flew down through the warm summer sky looking like soft suns or trembling stars or colors out of the sunrise or sunset they were so beautiful then the birds of earth flew around them and did them homage and when they sang the nightingale stood silent and hid her head for shame and would never sing in the daytime anymore but only at night when the beautiful strangers were asleep that is why the nightingale sings by night and not by day only since the birds of paradise have lost their voice which I'm going to tell you about she does sing in the daytime sometimes just a little so the birds of paradise were kings and prima donnas amongst the birds of earth and they were happy for a time they were not quite so happy after a little while for they got tired of hearing the birds praise them and wherever they looked they saw nothing to give them pleasure the earth indeed was beautiful but they remembered paradise and that made it seem ugly there was nothing for them to see that was worth the seeing or to hear that was worth the listening to except their own beauty and their own song but that reminded them of paradise and they could not bear to be reminded of it now that they had lost it forever in fact they were miserable and it was not long before they were all flattering outside the gates of paradise and begging the phoenix to let them in but the phoenix said no I cannot I warned you that the gates of paradise could only be passed twice once in and once out and then no more I tried to keep you from going but you chose to go and now you must stay outside you can never enter paradise again if we cannot enter it said the poor birds of paradise let us at least forget it take away our beautiful voices so that when we sing we shall not think of all the joys we have lost let our song be no more than the larks or the nightingales or make us only able to twitter and not sing at all then we can listen to the lark and the nightingale and perhaps in time we may grow to admire them as it is we must either sing or be silent we do not like to sit silent and when we sing we think only of paradise yes said the phoenix I will take your voice your beautiful voice of song so he took it and that is why the birds of paradise never sing at all now not even as the lark and the nightingale sing after that they were happier but still they had their great beauty their glorious glorious plumage and when they looked at each other they felt sad and hanged their heads for still they thought of paradise you have taken our songs from us they said for they were soon at the gate again but still our beauty remains take that also that when we look at each other we may not think of the paradise we have lost and be wretched fly back to earth said the phoenix and when you are a little way off I will open the gates of paradise wide and the brightness that is in it will stream out and scorch your feathers and you will be beautiful no more only you must fly fast and you must not turn to look for if you do the brightness will blind you you could bear it once when you lived in it and had known nothing else but now that you have lived on earth you cannot it would only blind you now so the birth of paradise flew towards the earth and when they had gone a little way the phoenix opened the gates he had only been speaking to them through the keyhole and as the splendor of paradise streamed forth and fell upon them their feathers were scorched in it's excessive brightness all except a few tufts and plumes which were not quite destroyed because you see they were getting feather away every second a little of their beauty was left and that was enough to make them the most beautiful birds on earth till we come to the hummingbirds but they are very ugly compared to what they once were when they lived in paradise think then what the real birds of paradise must be like when those that have left it and have had their plumage spoiled are so very beautiful that is the other way of explaining how there come to be birds of paradise living on the earth and I think you will say that it is the more sensible way of the two for us four people having ever believed that there were birds who had no feet or wings and that lived always in the air with their head turned towards the sun that does not seem possible nobody could have believed in a thing like that but here is a natural explanation but now you must not think that the birds of paradise which are in the world today are the very same ones that used to live in paradise and that had their feathers scorched oh no you must not think that those old birds of paradise died for of course as soon as they came to earth they became mortal they had been immortal before but before they died they had laid a great many eggs and reared a great many young ones and these young ones as soon as they were grown up laid other eggs and the birds that came out of those eggs laid others and so it has been going on for hundreds of thousands of years and now if you were to ask a bird of paradise where it was he used to live and why he had lost his voice and got his feathers scorched he would not know one bit what you were talking about in hundreds of thousands of years a great many things are forgotten and the birds of paradise of today are quite happy the earth is quite good enough for them and if they were not shot and put into hats for women with the frozen hearts to wear they would have nothing to complain of they have something to complain of now but you must remember your promise and then perhaps they will not be shot anymore now the birds of paradise that live on the earth today do not live all over it as they used to do in those old days when they could hear the lark it is only a very small part of the world that they live in now small I mean compared to the rest of it and there are no larks nor nightingales there I will tell you where it is far away over the deep sea farther than Africa farther than India farther even than Burma or Sayam there are a number of great islands and small islands which lie between Asia and Australia and all of these together are called the Malay Archipelago the largest of all these islands and the one that is the farthest away too is called New Guinea and it is a very large island indeed the largest in fact in the word after Australia which you know is so large that we call it a continent round about this great island of New Guinea and not very far from its shores there are some other islands which are quite tiny in comparison and it is here just in this one great island and in these few small islands near it that the birds of paradise live they do not live in any of the other islands of the Malay Archipelago but only just here in the ones that are the farthest away of all it would take you weeks to go in a steamer to where the birds of paradise live and if you were to go not in a steamer but in a ship with sails it would take you longer still but when you got there you would not see the birds of paradise flying all about as soon as you went the shore out of the ship or the steamer as you would see sparrows here oh no birds of paradise are not so common as that even in their own country they do not come into the towns like sparrows either but live in the great forests where people do not often go and even when one does go into them it is difficult to see them amongst the great tall trees and the broad fronted fern and the long hanging creepers that make a tangle from one tree to another those are wonderful forests those forests far away over the seas some of the trees have trunks so thick that a dozen men or perhaps twenty would not be able to circle them round by joining their hands together and so tall that when you looked up you would not be able to see their tops they would go shooting up and up like the spires of great cathedrals till at last they would be lost in a green sky not the real sky the blue one that would be still higher up but a green sky of leaves made by all the trees themselves and in this sky of leaves there would be flower stars almost as bright and as beautiful as the real stars of the real sky then there are other trees that have their roots growing right out of the ground and going up more than a hundred feet high into the air at the top of them is the tree itself going up another hundred feet or perhaps more so that the real tree the trunk at any rate begins in the air and before you could climb it you would have to climb its roots which does seem funny and there are pond trees with long tall slender trunks smooth and shining crowned with leaves that are like large green fens and retin ponds which are quite different for instead of being straight their trunks twist round and round the trunks of other trees going right up to their very tops and raising their own most beautiful feathery ones above theirs sometimes they will climb first up one tree and then down it again and up another and then down that till they have climbed up the ground trees all of them very very tall how tall or rather how long they must be you may think we say that a snake is so many feet long not tall and these ratan palms are palm creepers great vegetable serpents that twist and coil as they grow and hug the forest in their great coils which are larger and more powerful than those of any python or boa constrictor a python or a boa constrictor could not kill a very large animal but the great palm snakes will crawl up the largest tree and crush it and squeeze it till at last it dies and comes thundering down in the forest and then they will crawl along the ground to another and hug that to death too then there are tree ferns which are ferns that have trunks like trees which are sometimes 30 feet high with fronds growing from their tops so broad and tall that a number of people could sit underneath them in their cool deep shade as if they were a tent and there are wonderful flowers in these forests such as you only see here in botanical gardens or in the conservatories of rich people orchids and pitcher plants and other with Latin names that one forgets some of them are flower trees or tree flowers as high as the trees are and with hundreds of large crimson blossoms glowing out like stars from their trunks when you come upon them all at once in the gloom of the forest it almost looks as if some of the trees were on fire other flowers are golden like the sun they grow all together in clusters while others again grow on the branches of trees and hang down from them by long stalks which are like threads each thread stalk strung with flowers as a thread is strung with beads only these flower beads are as large as sunflowers with colors of varying from orange to red and with beautiful deep purple red spots upon them but if you had wings like the birds of paradise and could fly over the tops of the trees that make the forest and look down into a leafy meadow instead of up into a leafy sky then you would see the most gloriously beautiful flowers growing in that meadow just as the daisies and buttercups grow in the meadows that you run over here for flowers love the light of the sun and they struggle up into it through the leaves that keep it out to them the leaves are not as the sky but as the clouds that shut the sky out and as they are clouds that will never roll away even though they may fall sometimes in a rain of leaves the only thing for them to do is to climb up to them and pierce them and see the sky with the sun shining in it on the other side so whilst a few flowers stay in the shade below most of them grow and struggle up into the light and air above and they are all in such a hurry to get there that everyone tries to grow faster than all the others what a race it is a race to reach the sun you have heard of all sorts of races and some perhaps you have seen running races races in socks boat races, horse races though those I hope you never have and never will see or saw or heard of a fairer lovelier more delicate race than a race of flowers to reach the sun think of it all over those great wide far stretching forests forests stretching away like the sea and only bounded by the sea think of all the millions of flowers there must be in them with all their delicate shapes and reach fragrant scents and glorious colors and then think of them all growing up together each trying to be the first to see the sun so eager they all are but so gentle there's no pushing, nothing rude or rough but as the leaves grow thinner and the light shines more and more through them they tremble inside with a joy and one says to another we are getting nearer, nearer I can see him almost we shall soon be bathed in his light and so they all grow and grow till at last they gleam softly through the soft leaves and see the beautiful deep blue sky and the glorious golden sun yes, that is a lovely race indeed as anything to do with flowers is lovely and it is a race upwards to the sky to the sun not all races are of that kind it is in forests like those that the birds of paradise live and now that we know something about where they live we will find out something about them the great bird of paradise the great bird of paradise lives in the middle of the great island called New Guinea and all over some quite little islands close to it which are called the Aru Islands he is the largest of the birds of paradise and perhaps he is the most beautiful but it is not so easy to be sure about that however, we shall see what you think of him his body and wings and his tail are brown what, only brown you cry that is like a sparrow ah, but wait it is not quite like a sparrow it is a beautiful rich coffee brown and on the breast it deepens into a most lovely dark purple violet brown there, that is different to being just brown like a sparrow is it not than the head and neck are yellow not a common yellow but a very pretty light delicate yellow like straw sometimes ladies have hair of that colour and when they have then people look at them and say what beautiful hair which is just what they themselves say sometimes when they look in the glass these feathers are very short and set closely together which makes them look like plush or velvet so you can think how handsome they must be what would you think if you were to go out for a walk and see a bird flying about with a yellow plush or yellow velvet head but the throat is handsomer still that is a glorious gleaming metallic green some feathers are called metallic because when the light shines on them they flash it back again just as a bright piece of metal does a helmet or a breastplate for instance you know how they flash and gleam in the sunshine when the horse guards ride by at least if you have seen the horse guards you do and if you have not well I dare say you have seen it in a dish cover or a bright cold scuttle but fancy feathers as soft as velvet gleaming as if they were polished metal but gleaming all emerald they were jewels emeralds too then on the forehead and chin of this bird by which I mean just under the beak there are glossy velvet plumes of a deeper green colour the other is emerald these are like the deep lovely greens that one sees sometimes in the fiery opal of the mother of pearl what jewelry and out of it all flash two other jewels the birds two eyes which are a beautiful bright yellow colour to match with the yellow plush of its head then this bird has a pale blue beak and pale pink legs and I am sure if he thinks himself very handsome you can hardly call him conceited for he would be handsome only with this that I have told you about that would be quite enough to make him a beautiful bird without anything else but has he anything else any other kind of beauty besides what I have told you about listen the emerald throat and the yellow velvet plush head and the blue beak and the pink legs are as nothing nothing whatever compared to the glorious plumes which this bird of paradise has on each side of his body oh you never saw such plumes and you cannot think how lovely they are there are two of them one on each side and each one is made up of a number of very long soft delicate silky feathers which are of an orange gold or golden orange colour and so bright and glossy that they shine in the sun like floss silk just where they spring from the body each one of them has a stripe of deep crimson red and towards the top they soften into a pretty pale mauvey brown even one feather like that on each side would be beautiful or one all by itself in the middle but fancy a plume of them on each side a thick plume too though each feather is so slender and delicate there are so many of them they look lovely enough when they stream out behind as the bird flies for they are twice as long as its whole body so of course the two plumes come together and make one lovely large one that lies as softly on the air as the feather of a swan does on the water the body then is almost covered up in all these soft feathers so that it is just like looking at a flying plume with wings and head to it yes they look lovely enough then these glorious plumes but sometimes they look lovelier still and that is when the great bird of paradise raises them both up above its back so that they shoot into the air like two golden feather fountains that mingle together and bend over and fall in spray all around only it is a spray of feathers not a real spray and instead of falling they only wave and dance such a glorious plume cascade the bird himself is almost hidden in his own shower bath but the emerald throat and the yellow plush head look out of it and gleam like jewels as he peeps and peers about from side to side to see if anyone is looking at him for of course the great bird of paradise does not make himself so very beautiful just for nothing when he shoots up his feather fountains and sits in a soft silky shower bath he does it to be looked at and the person he wants to look at him most is the hen great bird of paradise for do you know and can you believe it the poor hen great bird of paradise is not beautiful she has no wonderful plumes she has no plumes at all and out of all those splendid colors I have told you about orangy gold and emerald green and all the rest of them she has only one which is the coffee brown now of course a nice rich coffee brown is a very good color but still by itself is not enough to make a bird one of the most beautiful birds in the world so when a bird is only coffee brown then compared to a bird who has all those other colors and the most wonderful plumes as well it is quite a plain bird so a poor hen great bird of paradise is quite a plain bird compared to her handsome husband with his emerald throat and yellow plush head and his wonderful orangy gold plumes but then if the poor hen bird has no glorious plumes of her own she is always looking at them always having them spread out on purpose for her to look at and that must be very pleasant indeed when the male great birds of paradise wish to show their poor plain hens how handsome they are just to comfort them and make them not mind being close they come to a particular kind of tree in the forest a tree that has a great many wide spreading branches at the top with none so very many leaves upon them so that it is easy for them to be seen by the hens who are sitting in their trees near all ready to watch them and they raise up their wings above their backs stretch out their emerald necks bow their yellow heads lightly to each other and shoot up their golden feather fountains making each of the long plummy toughs tremble and vibrate and quiver as they droop all over them and almost cover them up the plumes begin from under the wings that is why they lift their wings up first so that they can shoot straight up and so that the hen birds may see the little stripes of red which I told you about which look like little crimson clouds floating in a little golden sunset how beautiful they must look perhaps there may be a dozen great birds of paradise all bowing their heads and quivering their plumes on a dozen branches of the tree whilst a dozen more will be flying about from one branch to another so that the tree and the air never had anything to float upon her softer or lovelier than those golden floating plumes and no tree ever bore blossoms quite so beautiful as those wonderful golden paradise flowers and both the air and the trees are happy both of them whisper oh thank you thank you birds of paradise of course the birds of paradise are happy too they are happy to have such beauty and to be able to show it to the hens who sit hidden in the trees and bushes around and they perhaps the hens for whom it is all done are happiest of all then it is all happiness and beauty beauty and happiness those are the two things it is made up of there are not so many things that are made up of just those too try and think of some a party perhaps you may say only it must be a juvenile one or a pantomime well of course there is an enormous amount of beauty and happiness at things of that kind but is it all beauty and happiness not quite all I think still I am sure you would think it a very unkind thing if somebody were to break up a party before it were over or just to stop a pantomime before the last act had been performed you would think that cruel I am sure and now if you were looking at those beautiful happy birds of paradise at their party or pantomime I think it is as pretty as a transformation scene and all at once when they were just in the middle of it first one and then another of them were to fall down dead to the ground till at last half of them lay there underneath the tree and the rest had flown away would you not think that a most cruel and dreadful thing where would be the beauty and the happiness now it would all be gone joy would have been changed into sorrow and beauty almost into ugliness for a dead bird is almost ugly compared to a beautiful living one and life without having been changed death yes such life the life of happy lovely birds of birds of paradise and I think if you were there and saw that happen saw those beautiful birds fall down dead murdered all of a sudden you would be very sorry and angry too and you would say that only a demon could have done so wicked a thing you would be right if you were to say so it could only be a demon that same little demon that I told you about who sang a charm to send the goddess of pity to sleep and then froze the hearts of the women with his bad wicked powder that wretched little demon who wears the magic suit of clothes which makes him seem all that he ought to be is always killing the poor birds of paradise just when they are feeling so happy and looking so beautiful he does not do it himself any more than the women for as he could not be in more than one place at a time he would not be able to kill a sufficient number to satisfy him and besides he has a great many other things of the same kind but more important to do so he makes his servants do it that is always been his plan he has servants all over the world and you must not think that they are as bad as himself for that is not the case at all they are not bad but enchanted so that they do all sorts of bad things without having any idea that they are bad in fact they generally think that they are the finest things in the world the demon has all sorts of little bottles with different kinds of powder in them one for every kind of servant that he wants in his little private workshop they all stand in rows upon a shelf and every one has a different label on it so that he knows which to take up in a minute one is labeled glory and has a powder in it of all sorts of different colors scarlet, blue, green, white and a little of it a dirty yellow the man on whom the grain of this powder falls will always be wanting to kill people and the more he kills the better man he will think himself and so too will other people think him you may imagine what a lot of work the demon can get out of a servant like that another one is labeled justice and whoever the powder in that falls on will go through life always saying that he doesn't believe and trying to make other people believe it others are labeled patriotism duty, culture refinement, taste sensibility and so on all which words your mother will explain to you the demon chooses them according to the kind of things he wants done and all on whom any of the powders inside the bottles will fall become his servants in different ways very grand ways too they are often thought and go on serving him and thinking well of themselves and being held always in great honor and respect all their lives now you must not of course think that these bottles really contain the things that are written on their labels no indeed they are false labels for you see these bottles stand in the window where people can see them the demon does not keep them in his pocket like those other two I told you of so when people see them they think that they have good powders instead of bad ones inside them and when the stoppers are taken out the powders fly into their eyes and they are blinded and never know the difference almost every one is blinded for the demon just stands at the window of his workshop and blows his powders through the world it is not necessary for him to walk up and down in it sprinkling them about that would be a long tedious way of doing things he just blows them and he need never be afraid of blowing too much away for his little bottles are magic bottles and always fool outside his window there is always a great crowd looking at the bottles and admiring them whilst the demon stands there in his magic suit of clothes and seems to everyone to be just what he ought to be they say that somewhere else in the world there is a very beautiful house with a radiant angel inside it and that there invases crystal and diamond or something like crystal and diamond but very much more beautiful are the real things which the demon only pretends to have in his ugly little bottles anyone has only to step in and ask for them and the angel will open the vase and shed the essence that is inside it into his very heart but is it not funny hardly anybody ever goes into a beautiful house and the few who do cannot persuade others to follow them I will tell you why this is the beautiful house does not look like a beautiful house at all to most people and the angel of light who sits in the open doorway seems to them to be only a shabbily dressed unfashionable sort of person nobody sees his wings or if they do vulgar and out of date it is the demon who is to blame for this he has had time to blow his magic powders all about the world and they have blinded people's eyes and made what is really beautiful seem mean and ugly to them for the demons powders can blind the eyes as well as freeze the heart but the little workshop of the demon which is really as mean and place as you could find that people think glorious and beautiful and his ugly bottles are to them as bases of crystal and diamond so they crowd about the demons workshop thinking it to be the angels house and into the angels house they never go for they think a demon or at least an unfashionably dressed person with wings which are out of date lives there now it is one of those bottles with the false labels which the demon takes when he wants one of his servants in that part of the world to kill the great bird of paradise for I don't think the men in those countries would much mind what the women said to them I cannot tell you which bottle it is but it is none of those that I have told you about the label upon it is not nearly such a grand one and the powder is of a much lesser grain for the man that the demon is going to blow it hat is only a poor savage who is black and nearly naked and who is not able to serve him in such important ways as are people of a lighter color and less scantily dressed he is only fit to do little odd jobs now and again and his wages are very low in consequence even what he gets he is often not allowed to keep for the demons upper servants take them away from him and he is not strong enough to resist one of his odd jobs is killing the poor great birds of paradise and now I will tell you how he does it only you must not be angry with him or even with the other people whose servant he thinks he is though they are all of them really the servants of one master that wretched little demon in the magic suit of clothes which makes him seem nice to everybody although he is so nasty it is he you must be angry with for it is he who does all the mischief in the way I have told you he gets people into his power but if you do as I tell you perhaps you will be able to save them from him and to save the poor beautiful birds of paradise as well as other beautiful birds from being killed and killed until they are all dead think what a lot of good you will have done then to have kept such beauty safe in the world one might have been lost out of it forever yes and you will have done more good than that even for you will have help to wake up the goddess of pity and when once she is awake there will be so much for her to do for ah she has been asleep so long but now listen I have told you that the man who kills the great bird of paradise is black and naked and savage but he is not a negro although he is rather like one his hair is something like a negro's hair but there is much more of it in fact it is quite a mop and he is very proud of it he is a papoan and the islands that he lives in are called the papoan islands and are a very long way from Africa which is where the negroes live he is a tall fine looking man with a beautiful figure and he looks very much better naked than he would do if he were dressed and when I said that he was black this is not quite true because he is really brown but it is such a very dark brown that it looks black and when a man is such a very dark brown that he looks black and people will call him a black man so that is what we will call his papoan now this black man is very quick and active which is what most savages are and he can climb trees almost as well as a monkey when he finds one of those trees where the great birds of paradise have their parties their succolades that is what he calls them it is a word that means a dancing party he climbs up into it early in the morning before it is daylight and waits for them to come it does not matter how tall the tree is and this kind of tree is very tall or how dark it may be this naked papoan savage climbs up it quite easily and without slipping just like a monkey he takes up with him some leafy branches of another tree and with these he makes a little screen to sit under so that the birds of paradise shall not see him besides this he takes his bow and arrows to shoot the poor birds with for he does not use a gun which would make too much noise and besides the shot would hurt the beautiful plumage the arrows do not hurt the plumage as the shot would because at the end of each one there is a piece of wood shaped something like an acorn but as large as a teacup and the large end of it makes what would be the point of an ordinary arrow when the poor birds are hit with that great smooth piece of wood they are killed because it hits them so hard but their plumage is not hurt at all for nothing has gone into the skin or torn the feathers so the naked black man waits behind his screen to make birds of paradise to come and as soon as they come and begin to spread their plumes he shoots first one then another of them with his great wooden arrows and they fall down dead underneath the tree and do you know they are so occupied in showing off their beautiful plumes and so happy and excited as they spread them out and look through them or fly like little feathery cascades from branch to branch that is not until quite a number of them have been killed for the black savage does not often miss his aim that the others take fright and fly away then the black man climbs down from the tree and picks up the poor beautiful dead birds and takes them to another man who is yellow and not quite so naked as he is who gives him something for them much as he ought to the yellow man cheats the black man and when he has cheated him he takes the skins to a white man who is quite dressed and civilized and sells them to him and the white man cheats him a good deal more than he has cheated the black man for of course the white man is the cleverest of the three you see there are yellow men in those countries called malaise as well as black men white men go there as well then the white man puts all the beautiful skins that he has bought from the yellow man as well as a great many others which have been brought to him from all the country and from all the islands round about into one of those large kinds of boxes called crates which I have told you about and it is put on board a ship where there are a great many others of the same kind all full of the skins and feathers of beautiful birds that have been killed and the ship sails to England and then up the Thames to London where the crates are taken out and put into great vans and driven away to the great ugly warehouses to be unpacked and laid on the floor there in a heap all as I have told you you know what happens to them then and now I will tell you something funny that I dare say you would never have thought of but which is quite true all the same that the great heap of brightly colored feathers lying on the floor to make which hundreds of thousands of the most beautiful birds in the world have been killed and hundreds of hundreds of thousands of their young ones that would have grown up beautiful too have been starved to death in the nest that great big heap of the earliest plumage is not so lovely not nearly so beautiful as one living thrush or one living blackbird or one living swallow or one living robin red breast that is the difference between life and death alive bird of paradise is hundreds of times more beautiful than alive blackbird or thrush or swallow or robin red breast but when it is dead it is not so beautiful as they are its feathers are more beautiful still of course but where are the waving feathers the floating plumes the bright eyes the quick graceful movements and the flight the glorious flight of a bird they are gone they are gone forever and in their place there is only stiffness and deadness and dustiness oh never never wish to see a dead bird of paradise in a hat when you can see a living thrush or blackbird on the lawn of your garden or a living swallow flying over it and even if you can never see a living bird of paradise as I dare say you never will be able to what then what then you cannot see everything but have you not got an imagination your mother who has got one will tell you what it is and is it not better to imagine a beautiful bird flying about in life and loveliness than to see it dead and the people who have these hats with the birds of paradise or with other beautiful birds sewn into them how much do you think they really care about them do they ever look at them after they have once bought them oh no they never do sometimes they look in the glass with the hat on yes but then it is only to see themselves in the hat not the hat so now you know what kind of birds the birds of paradise are and how very beautiful they are and you know how gloriously beautiful the great bird of paradise is and how it is killed and not allowed to live and be happy just because it is so beautiful but now these great birds of paradise live only in some quite small islands and just in one part of one large one and although there may be a good many of them where they do live yet if they are always being killed in that way very soon there will be no more of them left then there will be no more great birds of paradise in the world for they do not live outside those islands and when they are once gone they can never never come again but do you not think that it would be a dreadful thing if such a bird is this this beautiful great bird of paradise that I have told you about were to be killed and killed until it was not in the world anymore of course you would think it would be a dreadful thing I am sure that you would prevent it if you could and you can prevent it now yes now and in the easiest way possible all you have to do only you must do it directly is to put your arms around your mother's neck and make her promise never never to wear a hat with the feathers of the great bird of paradise in it of course she will promise if you ask her in that way when she once has promised you must not let her forget it you must remind her of it from time to time remember mother you promised and especially when you hear her talking about getting a new hat and when you have made her promise about herself then you must make her promise never to let you wear a hat of the sort of course when you are grown up and buy your own hats or your sisters either and if you have a sister very much older than yourself who buys her own hats then you can make her promise too perhaps that will be less easy but she will do it in time if you tease her enough about it and want her to read the book and then if you can get any other lady to promise well the more who do the better chance there will be for the beautiful great bird of paradise only you must make your mother promise first that is the chief thing and to do it you must tell her about the wicked little demon with his powders and his charm to send the goddess of pity to sleep so now go to your mother at once do not wait or if your mother is out anywhere you must only wait till she comes home again end of chapter 3 chapter 4 of beautiful birds this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Jennifer Painter beautiful birds by Edmund Sellus chapter 4 the red bird of paradise then there is another very beautiful bird of paradise which is called the red bird of paradise it is no use trying to find out whether he or the one I have just been telling you about is the most beautiful because if somebody were to think that one were somebody else would be sure to have a different opinion but now I will tell you what this red bird of paradise is like and then you will know how beautiful to think them you know those lovely plumes that I told you about that the great bird of paradise has growing from both his sides under the wings and how he lifts up his wings and shoots them right up into the air so that they fall all over him like two most beautiful fountains that meet in the air and mingle their waters together now the red bird of paradise has those plumes those feather fountains too and he can shoot them up into the air and let them fall all over him and look out from amongst them as they bend and wave and think how lovely I am just the same as the great bird of paradise can they are not so long it is true but then they are very thick and of a most glorious crimson colour such a colour as you see sometimes in the western sky when the sun is flushing it just before he sinks down for the night people talk about a sky like that and call it a glorious sunset when they see it in Switzerland one can see it here too if one likes but it is not usual to talk about it or even to look at it unless one is in Switzerland your mother will tell you the reason of this fancy a bird that looks out of a crimson sunset of feathers crimson but with beautiful white tips to them crimson and white that is almost more splendid than orange gold and mauvey brown unless you like orange gold and mauvey brown better it is all a matter of taste but there is another thing that the red bird of paradise has which the great bird of paradise has not got at all he has two little crests of feathers beautiful metallic green feathers on his forehead just fancy not one crest merely but two one talks about a feather in one's cap which of course a bird may have without it been wrong but what is a feather in one's cap compared to two crests of feathers on one's forehead and such crests and besides his crimson sunset with their white tips and the two little lovely green crests on his forehead this bird has two wonderful feathers in his tail they are not feathers at all really that is to say the soft part of them on each side of the quill which we call the web is gone and there is only the quill left but it is such a funny sort of quill that you would never think it was one it is flat and smooth and shiny and quite a quarter of an inch wide in fact it looks like a ribbon a beautiful black glossy ribbon 22 inches which is almost two feet long these two wonderful ribbons I told you there were two hang down in graceful curves as the bird sits on the branch of a tree first a curve out and then in and then out again just at the tips so that the two together make quite a pretty figure of course when there is any wind at all they float gracefully about and look very pretty indeed and when the red bird of paradise flies his two wonderful ribbons float in the air behind him just as if he had been into a linen draper's shop and bought something and flown out again with it in his tail and yet which are feathers really though they do not look like them the soft part of the feather which is usually the pretty part has been taken away and only the quill which is usually almost ugly by comparison has been left and yet they are so handsome that is because Dame Nature is such a wonderful workwoman she can make almost anything she tries to out of any kind of material now I must tell you that the great bird of paradise has two funny feathers like this in his tail too feathers I mean without webs to them only his ones have just a little web at the beginning and again at the very tips all the part in between has none at all these funny feathers of the great bird of paradise are even longer than those of the red one for they are from 24 to 34 inches long and 34 inches you know is almost 3 feet but then they are thin not broad like ribbons and the plumes of the great bird of paradise are so long that they are a good deal hidden by them sometimes hardly noticed amongst such a lot of finery I think that must be why when I was describing the great bird of paradise to you I forgot all about them which of course I ought not to have done but we all of us make mistakes sometimes people who write books just as much as people who only read them although of course people who write books should be more careful in fact a great many of the birds of paradise have these funny feathers and some of them have more than two if you look for page 77 you will see a picture of the king bird of paradise who has two beauties he is not one of the birds that I talk about in this book there was no room for him but that does not matter he sent me his picture and it will show you what these funny feathers are like there is a bird of paradise that has 12 of them but now I must finish talking about the red bird of paradise I have told you about the glorious crimson plumes that he has on his sides and the two funny feathers like ribbons in his tail and the double crest of beautiful emerald green feathers on his forehead but of course there are other parts of him besides these and I must tell you what they are like too his head and his back and his shoulders are yellow as they are in the great bird of paradise but it is a deeper and richer yellow not the light straw colored yellow which he has and which is very pretty too I am sure we should never agree as to which is the prettier of these two birds his throat too is of a deep metallic green color you know what metallic means now but those lovely green feathers go farther up in fact right over the front part of the head which is his forehead so as to make those two sweet little crests which he has and which help to make him such a very handsome bird the rest of his wings and body and his tail except the two ribbons in it a brown a nice handsome rich coffee brown his legs are blue and his beak is a fine gamboge yellow aha there is a beautiful bird indeed what would you say if you were to see a bird that was yellow and green with crimson sunset plumes and with two long glossy ribbons in his tail and two beautiful crests on his forehead with blue legs and a gamboge bill flying from tree to tree in your garden ah yes if you were to see him like that he would be more beautiful than any bird that has ever been in your garden or that has ever flown about in the woods all over England for he would be alive then alive and happy but if you were to see him dead he would not be so beautiful as any of the birds in your garden no not even as the sparrows which is saying a good deal for the beauty of life would be gone out of him and that is the greatest beauty of all and even if he were in a cage unless it were a very large one with a great many trees in it he would hardly look as beautiful as a lark does when he sails and sings in the sky so however beautiful this bird is you must only want to see him flying about in the forests or gardens of his native land if ever you go there if you do not go there then you must not mind but you must try to imagine him which is almost as good as seeing him if you do it properly but you must never want to see him in a cage that is smaller than a large garden with trees in it or dead in a glass case or a hat it is better that beautiful birds should be alive and you not see them than that they should be killed miserable for you to look at now you may be sure that if the poor great bird of paradise is killed because he is so beautiful so is the poor red bird of paradise because he is it is dreadful to be sure of such a thing and it is all because of the wicked little demon and the goddess of pity being asleep when the wicked little demon has been driven away and the goddess of pity has been woken up and it is you who are going to wake her then you may be sure that no beautiful birds will be killed and that the more beautiful they are the less people will ever think of killing them but that time is not come yet it will not come till you have read this book right through and finished it now you remember that the great bird of paradise is shocked with arrows by a naked black man with frisley hair like a mop a man that we call a savage though really he is not nearly so savage as some men who wear clothes all over them you see where he lives it is very warm so that he does not want clothes and he looks very much better without them for his black smooth skin is very handsome indeed and so is his frisley hair if you saw him you would think him a very nice amiable person for he is always laughing and springing about and his white teeth do flash so and his eyes beam and he looks very pleasant indeed I think you would quite like him so you must not despise him because he is not civilised like us never despise people because they have a different coloured skin to your own and wear no clothes and are called savages perhaps we may be better than people like that but remember that the angels are much better compared to us than we are compared to such people but do you think the angels despise us? oh no I don't think that so you must not despise the savages never despise anyone that is the best thing instead of doing that try to find out what is good about them there is sure to be something and often it is something which they have and we have not never despise well it is this same naked frisley haired pachywan who kills the beautiful red bird of paradise as well as the great one but he does not do it with bows and arrows but in quite another way which I will tell you about the birds of paradise are all fond of fruit they like insects and things of that sort too but fruit they are very fond of they like a nice ripe fig and there are so many fig trees in that country both growing wild and in the gardens too that when the figs are ripe they do not trouble to finish one before they begin another but fly about from tree to tree making a bite here and another there out of just the ripest and nicest that is a nice delicate way of eating figs I think just to take a little and leave the rest we are so greedy that we always eat the whole fig but then we are not birds of paradise but now there is one particular fruit which the red bird of paradise likes better than any other much better even than a ripe fig it is a fruit which I do not know the name of in fact I am not quite sure that it has a name in some language which we would neither of us understand but you know what an arum lily is and in those forests that I told you of there is a kind of arum lily which climbs up trees for there are climbing lilies there as well as climbing palm trees this climbing arum lily has a red fruit and it is this red fruit which the red bird of paradise thinks so exceedingly nice it will though anywhere to get that fruit and the naked black man with frisley hair knows that it will so he makes a trap for it with the very fruit that it is so fond of but besides the fruit two other things are necessary for making this trap one of them is a forked stick like the handle of a catapult the other is some string the papuan soon cuts the stick either with a knife that he has bought of a white man or with a sharp piece of stone or flint and the string he makes from some creeper or by rolling the inner bark of a tree between his hands when he has done this he takes the fruit and ties it to the forked stick then he climbs up a tree that he knows the red birds of paradise come to perch on and ties the stick with the fruit fastened to it to one of the branches to do this he takes a very long piece of string one end of which hangs right down to the ground and he ties it so cleverly that he has only to pull the string for the stick with the fruit on it to come away from the branch just as a sash that is tied in a bow when you pull one of the ends then the black papuan climbs down from the tree again and sits underneath it with the end of the long string in his hand all ready to pull it when the right time comes sometimes it will not be long before a red bird of paradise comes to the tree sometimes the papuan will have to sit there the whole day or even for two or three days for he is very patient and will not go away till he has done what he came to do all savages are like that they are ever so much more patient than civilized people who wear clothes but whenever the poor red bird of paradise does come he is sure to see the fruit and then he is sure to fly to it to eat it then he is sure to get caught in the string for the string has a noose in it which gets round his legs and the frisley-haired man underneath who is watching the bird of paradise all the time just pulls the cord and down he comes as well as the stick you see he cannot fly very well with the stick fasten to him and however much he tries to it is no use for the black man has only to keep pulling the string that is how the poor red bird of paradise is caught and as soon as he has caught him the black frisley-haired man kills him and skins him I need hardly tell you that he does that for you know in whose service he is then the black man takes the skin to a yellow man who buys it of him and then the yellow man takes it to a white man who buys it of him and cheats him more and it all happens just the same as it did with the great bird of paradise until the skin is lying on the floor of the warehouse with all those other beautiful skins of poor beautiful birds all killed to be put into the hats of women whose hearts the wicked little demon has frozen is it not shocking? but you know how to stop it you have only to make your mother promise yes promise never to wear a hat that has the skin or any of the feathers of a red bird of paradise in it make her promise this before reading the next chapter end of chapter 4