by Means of the Support of the Air. Hereupon it came, that this Bird is painted in Arms without Feet: and for this Cause it is also given for a Difference of younger Brethren, to put them in mind to trust to their wings of Vertue and Merit, to raise themselves, and not to their Legs, having little Land to put their foot on.”
The Alerion is a small bird of the eagle tribe, heraldically depicted as without beak or feet.
Butler in “Hudibras” writes—
“Like a bird of paradise,
Or herald’s Martlet, has no legs,
Nor hatches young ones, nor lays eggs.”
The Bird of Paradise was unknown to the ancients, and one of the earliest notices of this bird is given in Magalhaen’s voyage in 1521:—“The King of Bachian, one of the Molucca Islands, sent two dead birds preserved, which were of extraordinary beauty. In size they were not larger than the thrush: the head was small, with a long bill; the legs were of the thickness of a common quill, and a span in length; the tail resembled that of the thrush; they had no wings, but in the place where wings usually are, they had tufts of long feathers, of different colours; all the other feathers were dark. The inhabitants of the Moluccas had a tradition that this bird came from Paradise, and they call it bolondinata, which signifies the ‘bird of God.’”
By-and-by, as trade increased, the skins of this bird were found to have a high market value, but the natives always brought them, when they came to trade, with their legs cut off. Thence sprang the absurd rumour that they had no legs, although in the early account just quoted, their legs are expressly mentioned. Linnæus
called the emerald birds of Paradise apoda or legless; whilst Tavernier says that these birds getting drunk on nutmegs, fall helpless to the ground, and then the ants eat off their legs.
“But note we now, towards the rich Moluques,