Birds of Paradise
These birds have been the subject of many a fable. Old naturalists describe them as being destitute of feet, dwelling in the air, without an abiding place, nourished by dews and the odor of flowers. Tavernier relates, “that they come in flocks during the nutmeg season to the south cities of India. The strength of the nutmeg intoxicates them, and while they lie in this state on the earth, the ants eat off their legs!” Moore says, in his “Lalla Rookh—”
“Those golden birds that in the spice-time drop
About the gardens, drunk with that sweet fruit
Whose scent hath lur’d them o’er the summer flood.”
The natives of New Guinea and the neighboring islands looked upon the skins of these birds as sacred, and as charms against the dangers of war. In preparing them, the legs of the bird were cut off in a manner that gave rise to the idea, when the skins were exported from the islands, that the birds were legless.
“But thou art still that Bird of Paradise,
Which hath no feet, and ever nobly flies.”