CHAPTER IV
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 him. 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 mauvy-brown; unless you like orange-gold and mauvy-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 its being 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 plumes 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, twenty-two 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, to make these two pretty ribbons—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 twenty-four to thirty-four inches long, and thirty-four inches, you know, is almost three 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, and, 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 ought to 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 twelve 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-coloured 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 colour—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, are brown—a nice, handsome, rich, coffee-brown—his legs are blue, and his beak is a fine gamboge-yellow. Ah, 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 or fields 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 or made miserable for you to look at.