Living Birds of Paradise in Europe

Abstract

WE have just received at the Zoological Gardens of Dresden two living Birds of Paradise, viz., Paradisea papuana, from New Guinea, and Paradisea apoda, from the Aru Islands, both males, in excellent health and fine condition. Mr. von Below, Assistant-Resident of Makassar, in Celebes, brought them home in a three-months' passage from Makassar, viâ Java, Suez, Gibraltar, London, and Hamburg to Dresden, where he intends to spend the winter, and has deposited the birds in the Zoological Gardens. They have already been about three years in captivity with him at Makassar, where I saw them when passing through I that place to New Guinea in 1873. The birds, therefore, are accustomed to cage-life, and as the conditions under which we have placed them are most favourable—consisting chiefly in a large space to allow free movement, and in an equal temperature of about 20° Réaumur—there is some hope of our being able to keep them alive. Mr. von Below got these birds through native traders who have their home at Makassar and trade to New Guinea and the Aru Islands. He fed the birds in India with grasshoppers, bananas, and rice, and on board the steamers with the same, cockroaches being substituted for grasshoppers. In Dresden we try to feed them with bread, rice, and worms (Mehlwürmer). Both are very active, and cry their well-known “wôk, wôk” with much force; the specimen of Paradisea apoda especially is not the least shy, and takes the worms out of one's hands. Their fine plumage suffered, of course, on the voyage, but I was astonished to see that it was not damaged more. As they probably will moult from about November till April, the plumage will not be at its finest condition till the month of May, and, supposing that the readers of NATURE will be interested in the further fate of these Birds of Paradise, I shall report in time how they are getting on.