Back Aa

Beautiful Birds

[Pg 179] <h2>CHAPTER XI The Resplendent Trogon and the Argus Pheasant</h2> One of the most beautiful birds in the whole world—more beautiful, even, than some of the Birds of Paradise and than some of the Humming-birds, even those that are not hermits—is the lovely Trogon of Mexico. But first I must tell you that there are a great many birds called Trogons that live in other parts of America as well as in Mexico, and in other parts of the world as well as in America. But the most beautiful of all of them—which is the only one I shall have time to tell you about—is the Resplendent Trogon or Quezal—for that is what the Indians call it—and it is only found in Mexico, which, you know, is in North America, only right down at the southern end of it, where there are a good many Humming-birds too. There are many more Humming-birds in South America than in North America. It is the hot, tropical countries they are so fond of. You see they like to be with their brothers the sunbeams. [Pg 180] This Mexico is such an interesting country. It belongs, now, to the Spaniards, whom I dare say you have heard about, but once it belonged to a quite different people, an old people who had been there for hundreds and hundreds of years, long before Columbus discovered America. These people were civilised, only in a different way to ourselves. They did not wear the kind of clothes that we do, but only light linen things, dyed all sorts of colours, which were prettier and suited the climate. They had many cities, as we have, though they were built in a different way, and the largest was built all over a great lake, with bridges going from one side of it to another. One can build houses in the water, you know, for there is Venice in Italy, and Rotterdam in Holland, which are both built in the sea, and which your mother will tell you about. These people, who were called Aztecs, were very clever workmen, and such wonderful goldsmiths and silversmiths, especially, that they used to make imitation gardens, with all sorts of flowers beaten out of gold and silver. Then they used feathers as we do a paint-box, to make pictures of things with. They would paint houses and ships and men and boats and landscapes with them, putting the right-coloured feathers just where they were wanted, blue ones for the sky, green ones for the grass, and so on. For the[Pg 181] wicked little demon knew of those people just as well as he knows of us, and he had taught them to kill birds, too. Only as they had no guns they could not kill nearly so many of them as we can, so that there was no danger, then, of a beautiful bird getting rarer and rarer, until, at last, it is not to be found in the world any more, which is what happens now with us—at least it will if you do not stop it. But though it would have been much better to let these birds—which were often Humming-birds—go on living and flying about, and though no picture made with their feathers was nearly so beautiful as the feathers themselves were, growing upon them, yet these feather-pictures of the old Aztecs were very wonderful things, and it is a great pity that there are none of them left now, for us to look at. Nothing could bring the poor birds back to life, so we might just as well have had the pictures that they had helped to make. And we might have had some other pictures, too, that these people made, for they used to draw things, just as we do, and when they wanted to describe a thing they would often draw a picture of it, instead of only saying what it was like. Even their writing was all in pictures, for when they wanted to write—say the word “sun” or the word “house”—they would draw a little picture of the sun or of a house, only so quickly and with such a few strokes of the pen or the paint-brush (I[Pg 182] don't quite know which it was), that it was quite like proper writing. Of course there are some words that are not so easy to make a picture of—as you can try for yourself—but, wherever it could be done, these old Aztecs would do it. And if only we had some more of this writing (for we have very little of it), we should be able to know a great deal more about this old people, who were in America before Columbus came there, and what they did and what they thought about, and the remarks they made to each other, and just think how interesting that would be. It is always interesting to know something about people quite different to ourselves who lived a long time ago. Unfortunately, when the Spaniards had conquered these people, instead of keeping the things which they had made, they burnt them. They burnt their houses, their temples, their cities, their picture-writings, their feather-pictures, their wonderful flowers—until the gold and silver they were made of were quite melted—their clothes, everything—even the people themselves—and, to save time, they often burnt the two last together. It is a great pity they did this, but, you see, everybody has a plan of doing things, and the plan of the Spaniards was to burn the people they conquered, and everything belonging to them. But was it not horribly cruel? Oh! most horribly; but so it is to shoot sea-gulls, and then to cut off their[Pg 183] wings, before they are dead, and throw them back into the sea, to drown there or bleed to death. That is what we do, and it is horribly cruel, too. So do not let us think about the cruel things the Spaniards did—yet. Let us think, first, about the cruel things that are done by people in our own country, and try to stop them. When we have stopped them—all of them—then we can think about the Spaniards—and some other nations. You know there is a proverb which says, “Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones;” that is generally one of the first proverbs we learn, and always the very first one we forget. I am afraid that those old Aztecs lived in rather a glass house, for they had a plan of cutting people open, whilst they were still alive, and tearing their hearts out. Horrible! was it not? But they did not burn people; so, when they saw the Spaniards doing so, they were shocked at them. As for the Spaniards, they were shocked at the Aztecs doing this other thing, for that had never been their custom. So the Aztecs and the Spaniards were shocked at each other. People are very easily shocked at each other, but they are not nearly so easily shocked at themselves. Now I come to think of it, I never remember hearing any one say, “I am shocked at myself!” And yet it would often be a quite sensible remark. [Pg 184] But what I wanted to tell you about these old Aztecs, who lived in Mexico all that time ago, was that, when the Spaniards came there, they were ruled over by a great king named Montezuma, and this king, amongst many other wonderful things, had a great place, where he kept all the different kinds of birds that were found in his country. A place like that is called an aviary, and you may be quite sure that the beautiful Trogon or Quezal was one of the birds in King Montezuma's aviary, for it was more highly thought of than any other bird in the country. Let us hope that all the birds in this aviary had nice, large places to be in, with trees, and flowers, and everything that they wanted; and, as it was a king's aviary, I daresay they had. Well, now, I will tell you what this beautiful bird, the Quezal or Resplendent Trogon, that used to be in King Montezuma's aviary, is like. It is about the size of a turtle-dove, but with the most beautiful, long, curling feathers in its tail, and these beautiful feathers, and all the feathers on its back and breast and on its head, too, are of the most lovely, rich, golden-green colour. Really I don't know whether there is more of gold or of green in them, but there is just the right quantity of each to make them the most beautiful, beautiful feathers you can possibly imagine. It is the tail-feathers[Pg 185] that are the most beautiful, for they are so very long—the two longest are much longer than those in a pheasant's tail—but there are some feathers which begin on the back and lap softly round the sides, one a little way off from the other, so that you see their pretty shapes, and these are almost as beautiful, although they are ever so much shorter. But now there is something funny about those long feathers, which I have called the tail-feathers, and that is, that they are not really tail-feathers at all. They look as if they were, but really they are feathers which go over the tail and cover it up, so that the real tail is underneath them. It is like that—though I am sure you never knew it—with the peacock; those beautiful, long feathers which we call the tail are not really the tail, and you will see that, directly, if you watch a peacock when he spreads them out, for, as soon as he does, you will see the real tail underneath, which is nothing very particular to look at. Still, in both these birds the long feathers look so like the real tail that we may very well call them the tail-feathers, and we can always explain about it afterwards, to show how much we know. And, do you know, these beautiful, long, golden-green feathers of the Quezal, which we are going to call the tail-feathers, although we know very well they are not, were so[Pg 186] highly valued by these people who used to live in Mexico, that no one was ever allowed to kill the bird, but only to catch it and cut them off and let it go again, so that new ones might grow on it. And only the chiefs were allowed to wear its feathers. And, indeed, there would be no great harm in wearing feathers in hats, if we got them only in that way. Only I cannot think what the little demon could have been about in that country. A law like that must have made him very angry indeed. Then, besides his splendid tail-feathers, this beautiful bird has a crest on his head, which is something like the one the Cock-of-the-Rock has on his, for it is of the same tea-cosy shape, only it is green instead of crimson, and it does not quite cover up the beak. So perhaps you will think that, as the Cock-of-the-Rock is all blood-red, with a tea-cosy crest on his head, this beautiful golden-green Trogon, with the tea-cosy crest on his head, is all golden-green. But no, all the lower part of him—that part which is hidden when he sits down—instead of being golden-green, is the most splendid vermilion, as bright a colour—although it is not quite the same—as the Cock-of-the-Rock's himself. Just think, golden-green and splendidly bright vermilion! and you cannot think how beautiful the one looks against the other. Whether they would look quite[Pg 189] so well together in a dress I am not quite sure, but your mother would know all about that. Only you must remember that such a golden-green and such a vermilion as this Trogon has were never seen together—no, or separately either—in any dress yet. <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/illo_187.jpg" width-obs="361" height-obs="800" alt="" /> <div class="caption">THE RESPLENDENT TROGON </div> </div> These beautiful Quezals live in the forests of Mexico, and they like to sit lazily on the branch of a tree, and let their beautiful long tails (which we know are not really tails) hang down underneath it, like the “funny feathers” of the Birds of Paradise. At least the male birds like to do that, because the female Quezals have not got those beautiful, long feathers, although they are very fine birds even without them. They are not so handsome as the males, but they are not plain like the female Humming-birds or Birds of Paradise. Perhaps the male Quezals show off their fine feathers to the females by letting them hang down like that, because, of course, long, soft, drooping feathers, such as they have, would not stand up in the air, like those of the peacock or of the Lyre-bird. But very likely they have some other nice way of showing them. Now, although the Quezal or Resplendent Trogon is such a magnificent bird, he is not so very often seen. It is difficult to find him in the dense forest, and I wish it was still more difficult than it is, for[Pg 190] when he is found, he is always shot for those beautiful feathers of his. When the Indian who is looking for him sees him sitting in the way I have told you, he hides somewhere near and imitates the cry of the bird. When the poor Trogon hears it, he thinks it is another Trogon—a friend of his, perhaps—and so he comes flying to where the sound came from. Then this deceitful man—and I really think it is very contemptible to deceive a bird in that way—shoots him, and there is one beautiful, happy bird less in the world. Is it not dreadful to think of, that in almost every part of the world there are some very beautiful birds to be found, and everywhere they are being killed and killed and killed, so that they are getting scarcer and scarcer every year? If it were not for what your mother has promised you about the Lyre-bird, and what she is going to promise you about this Trogon, there would soon be no more beautiful Lyre-birds in Australia, and no more beautiful Trogons in Mexico. How terrible that would be! But we have saved the beautiful Lyre-bird, and now we are going to save the beautiful Trogon. Ask your mother—oh, do ask her—to promise, most faithfully, never to have anything whatever to do with a hat that has any of the feathers—short or long, golden-green or vermilion—of a Quezal—a Resplendent Trogon—in it. Ah, now she has promised, and we have[Pg 191] saved that beautiful bird as well as a great many others. Now I will tell you about a very beautiful pheasant—the Argus Pheasant. Some people may think him the most beautiful one of all. And yet he is not the most showy pheasant—for the pheasants, you know, are very showy birds indeed. There is the Golden Pheasant, who is dressed in the sun's own livery; and the Silver Pheasant, who has a silver white one which is more like the moon's, but who looks gaudy and smart all the same; and the Amherst Pheasant, who manages to be handsomer than both the sun and moon—which is very clever of him; and the Fire-back, who is all in a blaze without minding it at all; and the Impeyan or Monal, who looks as if he was made of beaten metal, and had just been polished up with a piece of wash-leather. There is the Peacock, too—for he is really nothing but a large pheasant—so, you see, the pheasants are a handsome family, and you may be sure that they know how to appreciate themselves. The pheasant that we are going to talk about is quite a large bird, not so large as the peacock, it is true, but with still longer tail-feathers, and oh, such wonderful wings! One may say, indeed, that this bird is all wings and tail, but he is principally wings, at least when he spreads them out. But, even when they are folded, they are so very[Pg 192] large that he looks quite wrapped up in them; and I think he is, too, partly because of that, but still more because they are so very handsome. So, first, I will tell you what these large, handsome wings of his are like. Well, in each one there are twenty-five or twenty-six very fine long feathers, but these feathers are not all so fine or so long as each other. Ten of them are about a foot long, and these are prettily marked and mottled with all sorts of pretty brown colours, whilst, down the centre of each one, there is a pretty blue stripe. It is the quill of the feather that makes that stripe, for it is blue, and looks as if it had been painted. So you see even these are pretty feathers, but it is the fifteen or sixteen other ones that are so very beautiful. They are much broader and longer than the other ten—the longest are more than twice as long—and down each of them, just on one side of the great quill in the centre, there is a row of such wonderful spots. They are as large as horse-chestnuts (big ones I mean), and what they look like is a cup and ball, the ball just lying in the cup ready to be sent up; only, of course, the cup has no handle to it—you must not think that—for the spots are round. And, do you know, the balls look as if they were really balls, so that you would think you could take them in your hand, and throw them up into the air, and catch them[Pg 193] again as they came down. They do not look flat at all. You know, when you try to draw an orange or an apple, how difficult it is not to make it look flat like a penny. You would make it look flat, I know, but these wonderful balls on the Argus Pheasant's feathers look as if they had all been drawn by a very clever artist (as indeed they have been—a very clever one), who had shaded them properly; you know how difficult shading is. There are eighteen or twenty—sometimes as many as twenty-two—of these wonderful spots on each feather, but I have not told you, yet, of what colour they are. Perhaps you will think they are very bright and dazzling. No, they are not like that at all. They are soft, not bright, and their softness is their beauty. All round them, at the edge, there is a ring of deep, soft brown, and, just inside the ring, there is a lighter brown, and it goes on getting lighter and lighter, until, in the centre, it is a pretty, soft amber, and, at the edge of the soft amber, there is a pretty, white, silvery light, as if the moon was just coming out from behind an amber cloud. So pretty! And when the Argus Pheasant spreads his wonderful wings out, you can see more than a hundred of these wonderful spots on each wing, which is more than two hundred altogether. Such a sight! so soft and so pretty they look. Shall I tell you what such wings are like?[Pg 194] They are like skies where the stars are all moons, that float softly among soft brown and amber clouds, tipping them all with soft silver. For the Argus Pheasant is not one of the very brilliant birds of the world. No, he is not brilliant at all. His colours are only soft browns and soft ambers and soft, silver whites, and yet he is so pretty, so beautiful. I think he is as pretty as the peacock, and, when one sees him after the peacock, it is a rest for the eye. Some people might prefer him to the peacock. Do you wonder at that? It is not so very wonderful. There may be a little girl reading this, with soft brown hair and soft brown eyes, and with nothing golden or gleaming about her, and some people, besides her father and mother, may think her prettier than the little girl who is all golden and gleaming. It is all a matter of taste. Some like a broad sheet of water dancing in the sunlight, and some like quiet streams running under cool, mossy banks, with trees arching above them, where the shadows are cool and deep, and where even the sun's peepings are only like brighter shadows. People who like that better than the other, will like the quiet little girl with the brown hair better than the one who gleams and dazzles; and they will like the Argus Pheasant better than the peacock, and think them both a rest for the eye. It is not at all a bad thing to be a rest for the eye. <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/illo_195.jpg" width-obs="600" height-obs="603" alt="" /> <div class="caption">THE ARGUS PHEASANT </div> </div> [Pg 197] I have told you how large the wings of the Argus Pheasant are; when he spreads them out to show to the hen bird (who has nothing like them), they look like two banners or two beautiful feather-fans, the kind of fans that you see Eastern queens being fanned with, in the pictures. Then he has a very fine tail as well, as I told you. Two of the feathers in it are very long indeed—quite four feet long, I should think—and as broad as a man's hand, if not broader, near the base (which means where they begin), but getting gradually narrower towards the tips. On one side, these feathers are a soft, rich brown, with silver-white spots, and, on the other, a soft, silver grey, with silver-white spots. When the Argus Pheasant spreads out his two great wings, he takes care to lift up his fine handsome tail, as well, so that the two long feathers of it are quite high in the air. So there is his tail going up like a rocket, whilst his wings spread out on each side of it, like feather-fans, and his head comes out between them, just in the middle, and makes a polite bow to the hen. That is the right way to do it, and the Argus Pheasant would rather not do it at all than not do it properly. Oh, he takes a great deal of trouble about it, and all for the hen—which is unselfish. This beautiful Argus Pheasant lives in Sumatra—which is a large island of the Malay Archipelago—[Pg 198]and also in the Malay Peninsula and Siam, which are, both, part of the great Asiatic continent—as perhaps you know. Yes, that is where he lives, but you might walk about there for a very long time, without ever once seeing him, for the Argus Pheasant is a very difficult bird to find. He lives in the great, thick forests, and keeps out of everybody's way. One hardly ever does find him, but, sometimes, one finds his drawing-room (for he has one, like the Cock-of-the-Rock and the Lyre-bird), and if one waits there long enough (I would wait a week if it were necessary) one may see him come into it. He spends almost all his time in looking after this drawing-room, and he only sees the hen Argus Pheasant when she comes there too, to look at him. Of course he dances in it, and it is there that he spreads out his wonderful wings and lifts up his tail, in the way that I have told you. The Argus Pheasant is very proud of his drawing-room, and he will have it nice and clean, with nothing lying about in it. So, if he finds anything there that has no business to be there, he picks it up with his beak, and throws it outside. He has not to open a door to do that; his drawing-room is only an open space which he keeps nice and smooth, so, as it is always open, it does not want a door to it. Now I think you will say—and I am sure your mother will agree with you—that the[Pg 199] Argus Pheasant does quite right to act in this way, and that to keep one's drawing-room clean and tidy is a very proper thing to do. Your mother may be surprised, perhaps, that it is the male Argus Pheasant, and not the hen bird, that does it, but I am sure she will not blame him on that account. But I am sorry to say that the wicked little demon has found out a way of making this habit of the poor bird's—which is such a good one—a means of killing him. The people who live in that part of the world—those yellow people called Malays that I have told you of—know all about the ways of the Argus Pheasant, and how he will not have things lying about in his drawing-room. Now there is a great tall reed that grows there, called the bamboo, which I am sure you have heard of, and which your mother will tell you all about. The Malays cut off a piece of this bamboo, about two feet long, and then they shave it down—all except about six inches at one end of it—till it is almost as thin as writing paper. It looks like a piece of ribbon then, only, as it is very hard, as well as thin, its edges are quite sharp, and able to cut like a razor. But the piece at the end, which has been left and not shaved down, they cut into a point, so that it makes a peg, and this peg, that has a ribbon at the end of it, they stick into the ground, right in the middle of the Argus Pheasant's[Pg 200] drawing-room. So, when the poor Argus Pheasant comes into his drawing-room, he sees something lying on the floor, which has no business to be there. It may be only a ribbon, but that is not the right place for it, so he tries to pick it up and throw it outside. But it won't come, however much he pulls it, for the peg at the end is fixed in the ground, and he is not strong enough to pull it out. At last he gets angry and thinks he will make a great effort. He twists the long ribbon round and round his neck—just as you would twist a piece of string round and round your hand if you were going to pull it hard—then takes hold of it with his beak, just above the ground, and gives quite a tremendous spring backwards. You may guess what happens. The long peg does not come out of the ground, but the ribbon is drawn quite tight round the poor bird's own neck, and the sharp edges almost cut his head off. Now is not that a most cruel trick to play upon a bird who only wants to keep his drawing-room in proper order? How would your dear mother like to be treated in such a way for being neat and tidy, which I am sure she is? But we are going to stop it—this cruel trick of the wicked little demon—for it was he who thought of it and taught it to the Malays. It is not their fault, you must not be angry with them,[Pg 201] any more than with the poor women whose hearts the same demon has frozen. We are going to stop it, and you know how. The Malay only kills the poor Argus Pheasant to sell his feathers. If they were not wanted he would leave him alone, to be happy and beautiful, and to dance in a nice tidy drawing-room. So just ask your mother to promise never to wear a hat—or anything else—that has a feather, or even a little piece of a feather, of an Argus Pheasant in it. That was going to be the end of the chapter, but there is just something which I have forgotten. I am sure you will have been wondering why this beautiful pheasant is called the Argus Pheasant, and what the word Argus means. Well, I will give you an explanation. Argus was the name of a wonderful being—a kind of monster—who had a hundred eyes, and who lived a long time ago. But he offended the great god Jupiter, who had him killed, and then Jupiter's wife—the goddess Juno—whose servant he was, put all his eyes into the tail of the peacock—for the peacock was her favourite bird. That is one story; but another one says that she did not put them all there, but only the bright ones. The soft ones—those pretty ones that I have been telling you about—she put into the wings of another bird, that she liked quite as well, if not better, and that bird became, at once, the Argus Pheasant. But now if Argus had[Pg 202] only a hundred eyes, how is it that there are two hundred, or more, in the wings of the Argus Pheasant, to say nothing of those in the tail of the peacock? That shows, I think, quite clearly that he must, really, have had a great many more; and so, now, when people talk to you of Argus and his hundred eyes, you can say, “A hundred, indeed! Why, he must have had three hundred at the very least.” And then you can tell them why. <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.