If
Coal Of Sufficiently Good Quality Should Be Found, A Tramroad
Would Be Made, And Would Be Very Easily Worked, Owing To The
Regular Descent Of The Valley.
Just as I got home I overtook Ali returning from shooting with
some birch hanging from his belt.
He seemed much pleased, and
said, "Look here, sir, what a curious bird," holding out what at
first completely puzzled me. I saw a bird with a mass of splendid
green feathers on its breast, elongated into two glittering
tufts; but, what I could not understand was a pair of long white
feathers, which stuck straight out from each shoulder. Ali
assured me that the bird stuck them out this way itself, when
fluttering its wings, and that they had remained so without his
touching them. I now saw that I had got a great prize, no less
than a completely new form of the Bird of Paradise, differing
most remarkably from every other known bird. The general plumage
is very sober, being a pure ashy olive, with a purplish tinge on
the back; the crown of the head is beautifully glossed with pale
metallic violet, and the feathers of the front extend as much
over the beak as inmost of the family. The neck and breast are
scaled with fine metallic green, and the feathers on the lower
part are elongated on each side, so as to form a two-pointed
gorget, which can be folded beneath the wings, or partially
erected and spread out in the same way as the side plumes of most
of the birds of paradise.
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