A long time ago--but long after the little demon had crept out of his cave--the early Portuguese voyagers (whom your mother will tell you about), when they came to the Moluccas to get spices, were shown the dried skins of beautiful birds which were called by the natives "Manuk dewata," which means "God's birds." There were no wings or feet to the skins, and the natives told the Portuguese that these birds had never had any, but that they lived always in the air, never coming down to settle on the earth, and keeping themselves all the while turned towards the sun. One would have thought they must have wanted wings, at any rate, to be always in the air, but that is what the natives said. So the Portuguese, who did not quite know what to make of it, called them "Passaros de Sol," which means "Sun-birds" or "Birds-of-the-Sun," because of their always turning towards him. Some time after that, a learned Dutchman who wrote in Latin (just think!), called these birds "Aves Paradisei"--Paradise Birds or Birds of Paradise--and he told every one that they had never been seen alive by anybody, but only after they had fallen down dead out of the clouds, when they were picked up without wings or feet, and still lying with their heads towards the sun in the way they had fallen. So, after that these wonderful birds were always called "Birds of Paradise." That is one way of explaining how they got their names, but the other way, and perhaps you will think it a _little_ more probable, is this.