mph was ever
greater, for to recognize an attractive creature and lift the gun to
take its life seems to be a single operation of many who carry the
murderous weapon.

The Twelve-wired, one of the better known varieties of the Birds of
Paradise, is usually figured, and probably always mounted, with its
exquisite plumes closely folded against its sides, but the French
naturalist and traveler Le Vaillant, in his large work published early
in the century, gives a representation of it under the name of _Le
Nebuleux_, with feathers expanded to the uttermost, a truly magnificent
display. All his figures, though sometimes incorrect, owing to the
scanty knowledge of the time, have a great deal of life. Each bird is
presented both in repose, with plumage all folded smoothly back, and in
excitement, with every fan and ruff and erectile ornament fully spread.

This peerless family takes kindly to captivity, as has been amply proved
by their enduring the voyage and living two years in the unfavorable
climate of England, as well as by spending at least nine years in an
aviary in China, and there is no reason why we in America should not
have opportunity to admire them and study their habits from life. Would
that some of our young explorers could be induced to turn from the
ice-fields of the Poles, and the death-swamps of the Tropics, to seek
these inimitable birds in the mountains and woods of the Papuan
Islands--not to shoot for our museum shelves, but to study their manners
and customs, and above all to introduce them into American aviaries,
that a new and absorbing chapter might be added to our Natural
Histories, and the Bird of Paradise cease to be the Bird of Mystery.

INDEX.

African Parrot and Mocking-Bird, 90.

Baltimore Oriole.
pursue a blackbird, 4.
baby ways, 9.
attacked by robin, 10.
an unnatural baby, 11.
one at a time, 11.
the father as drudge, 12.
visited by the Cardinal, 215.

Bird of Paradise, 253.
where found, 253.
mythical stories of, 253.
dancing parties, 255.
colors, 255.
arrangement of plumage, 255.
Red Bird of, 255.
Golden, 256.
Standard-wing, 256.
change of form, 256.
feathers an index of the mind, 256.
interesting new discoveries, 257.
Signor d'Albertis, 257.
Six-shafted, 257.
dusting itself, 258.
curious scene, 258.
a rare bird, 259.
description of, 259.
another new one,