form what ladies call "_revers_."

"Such eccentricities are really not to be accounted for, as we cannot
conceive they can be for any useful purpose" (!), gravely says science
in the person of an English authority. This severely disapproved of
plumage is blue with green lights on back and head, and black edged on
every feather, with purple on the breast.

Another species of the curly family, the Blue-green Paradise Bird (_M.
Chalybea_), has been known to us for a hundred years, but its habits
are as much a mystery as its curls. It is exquisite in color, of the
richest purple, glossy as satin, with neck of deep green, and all
crinkled and curled over head and neck.

The Long-tailed Bird of Paradise is the proud possessor of twenty-two
names, from which it were hard to make a selection. It is one of the
largest, being twenty-two inches in length, most of which, however, is
tail, and is splendid in soft velvet-like black with hints of green and
blue and purple. On each side it carries a fan of curved feathers, and
the plumes of the flanks are of the lightest and most delicate texture.
Words cannot describe the grace and elegance of this bird, and the
perfect specimen in the museum above mentioned is worthy of a pilgrimage
to see.

A "changeable" Bird of Paradise is the one remaining eccentricity
conceivable to complete the variety in coloring, and this is found in
the _Epimachus Ellioti_, a bird so rare that at the time Gould published
his first work the specimen in his collection was unique, and
naturalists in their excursions in the Papuan Islands have vainly tried
to discover its home and learn its habits. The whole incomparable
plumage is of rich changeable hues; in ordinary light, when perfectly
motionless, the bird appears of a soft black, but on moving about the
color varies from violet to maroon, from this to deep amethyst, and then
to green, purple, and blue. A most extraordinary effect is produced when
it faces the spectator with fan-plumes expanded, reaching so far above
its head that they look like a pair of arms thrown up.

The most interesting though not the most beautiful of the family is the
Gardener bird, discovered a few years ago by the Italian naturalist
Beccari. Here is a Bird of Paradise eccentric not in dress but in
habits. His plumage is modest brown in several shades, so inconspicuous
that the partner of his joys can wear the same tints, which she does.
The bird is the size of a turtle-dove.