Birds of paradise (which, to clarify for non-bird people, are any of about 40 species found in New Guinea and adjacent islands) are among the subjects, in any writing, that induce the most superlatives. Their collective name is one; so are some of the names of the individual species, such as Magnificent Bird of Paradise. This is due not only to their beautifully colored and textured plumage but also their diversity (it is hard to tell that some of them are related to some others), their apparent intelligence and in some cases the inaccessibility of their habitat, in dense rainforest or on remote mountains. It is all well and good to use superlatives about them, but once you’ve got those out of the way, how do you continue? There have been quite a lot of books about birds of paradise, and the ones I’ve read deal with this issue in very different ways.
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| Greater Bird of Paradise |
Tim Laman and Ed Scholes’ book The Birds of Paradise (2012) is the result of eight years of expeditions to observe and document as many aspects of bird-of-paradise life as possible. It is definitely an impressive book, with lots of photos that definitely invite superlatives: many are very close-up and show the birds in action, eating or interacting with each other, often in their courtship displays. Laman and Scholes write about new discoveries regarding the birds’ behavior, as well as possible explanations for how all these diverse species and their lavish appearances could have evolved. This book frequently plunges into the facts after the superlatives are over. It is very precise; Laman and Scholes seem to be on their way toward mastery of their subject.
Laman and Scholes’ book contains many quotations from other bird-of-paradise books. One book that is notably not quoted from is The Lost Birds of Paradise by Errol Fuller (1995). This is a very different book on a slightly different subject: the birds of paradise that were collected and prepared as stuffed specimens, mostly from the 1890s to the 1920s, that are now in museums and do not fit into any of the known species. To me this book is at least, and almost certainly more, interesting than the other one. It is very much a history and extremely well researched; much of it is a skeptical response to the writings of a German biologist in the 1930s who claimed that all of these specimens that do not fit the known species are in fact hybrids. Though Fuller agrees for a few of the specimens, he makes the case for many others not being knowable for certain. Possibly they are separate species that are very rare or extinct; perhaps they are hybrids between other species than was originally assumed. This feeling of mystery serves to make the book particularly awesome, as do old pictures that provide historical context (such as an illustrated poem from some time in the late 19th century criticizing the wanton use of feathers {such as bird-of-paradise feathers} in hats, titled “A Killing Hat”- who knew the use of “killing” as a superlative was that old?). More importantly, Fuller’s book never stops with the superlatives. They don’t get in the way, but they give the book a sense of wonder that I feel is much more overt than in Laman and Scholes’ work, though it is far from lacking in the latter. It is this kind of wonder, I think, that put all the superlatives in the birds’ names in the first place.
-Elijah
P. S. I am trying to set up a opportunity to go behind the scenes at the American Museum of Natural History and see the bird specimen collection, which has many of the “lost” birds of paradise. Expect an update! |
| One of the "lost" ones. I might get to see these exact feathers! |
