Another curiosity is, The Bird of Paradise. - In natural history, a genus of birds of the order Picae. Generic character: bill covered at the base with downy feathers; nostrils covered by the feathers; tail of ten feathers, two of them, in some species, very long; legs and feet very large and strong. These birds chiefly inhabit North Guinea, whence they emigrate in the dry season to the neighbouring islands. Their feathers are used in these countries ornaments for the head-dress; and the Japanese, Chinese, and Persians, import them for the same purpose. The rich and great among the latter attach these brilliant collections of plumage, not only to their own turbans, but to the housings and harnesses of their horses. They are found only within a few degrees of the equator. Gmelin enumerates twelve species, and Latham eight. P. apo-da, or the greater Paradise bird, is about as large as a thrush. They pass in companies of thirty or forty together, headed by one whose flight is higher than that of the rest. They are often distressed by means of their long feathers, in sudden shiftings of the wind, and unable to proceed in their flight; are easily taken by the natives, who catch them with bird-lime, and shoot them with blunted arrows. They are sold at Aroo for an iron nail each, and at Banda for half a rix-dollar. Their food is not ascertained, and they cannot be kept alive in confinement. The smaller bird of Paradise is supposed, by Latham, to be a mere variety of the above. It is found only in the Papuan islands, where it is caught by the natives often by the hand, and exenterated and seared with a hot iron in the inside, and then put into the hollow of a bamboo, to secure its plumage from injury.