But now you must not think that the Birds of Paradise which are in the world to-day, are the very same ones that used to live in Paradise, and that had their feathers scorched. Oh no, you must not think that. Those old Birds of Paradise died (for, of course, as soon as they came to earth they became mortal, they had been immortal before), but before they died they had laid a great many eggs, and reared a great many young ones, and these young ones, as soon as they were grown up, laid other eggs, and the birds that came out of those eggs laid others, and so it has been going on for hundreds of thousands of years, right up to now. And _now_, if you were to ask a Bird of Paradise where it was he used to live, and why he had lost his voice and got his feathers scorched, he would not know one bit what you were talking about. In hundreds of thousands of years a great many things are forgotten, and the Birds of Paradise of to-day are quite happy. The earth is quite good enough for them, and if they were not shot and put into hats for the women with the frozen hearts to wear, they would have nothing to complain of. They have something to complain of now, but you must remember your promise, and then, perhaps, they will not be shot any more. Now, the Birds of Paradise that live on the earth to-day do not live all over it, as they used to do in those old days when they could hear the lark and the nightingale. It is only a very small part of the world that they live in now--small, I mean, compared to the rest of it--and there are no larks or nightingales there. I will tell you where it is. Far away over the deep sea, farther than Africa, farther than India, farther even than Burma or Siam, there are a number of great islands and small islands and middling-sized islands, which lie between Asia and Australia, and all of these together are called the Malay Archipelago. The largest of all these islands, and the one that is farthest away too, is called New Guinea, and it is a very large island indeed, the largest, in fact, in the world after Australia, which, as you know, is so large that we call it a continent. Round about this great island of New Guinea, and not very far from its shores, there are some other islands which are quite tiny in comparison, and it is here, just in this one great island and in these few small islands near it, that the Birds of Paradise live. They do not live in any of the other islands of the Malay Archipelago, but only just here in the ones that are farthest away of all.