To the inhabitants of the islands of Aroo the birds of paradise have, for many centuries, been an important article of commerce. They are shot with blunt-headed arrows; or caught by birdlime or in snares. As soon as they are killed their legs are cut off, as, by that means, the skins are more easily preserved, and also because the persons who purchase them prefer them thus. The entrails and breast-bone are taken out, and they are dried with smoke and sulphur, for exportation to Banda and other commercial settlements. They are in great demand both in Persia and India to adorn the turbans of persons of rank, and even the handles of sabres and the trappings of horses. Many of them are also sold to the Chinese; and, a few years ago, they were a very fashionable ornament for female head-dress in England. The appellation of birds of paradise has been given to these birds from a notion, formerly prevalent, that, destitute of feet, they were constantly in flight, even during their sleep; or that, if they did rest, it was only for a few moments together, and then suspended from the branches of trees by the long feathers of their tail: that the female deposited her eggs in a hollow place on the back of the male, and there sat upon and hatched them, that they fed only on dew: that, destitute of stomach and intestines, the whole abdominal cavity was filled with fat; and, lastly, that they never touched the earth until their death. It is somewhat difficult to account for the origin of notions so absurd, unless we are to suppose them the inventions of persons who traded in the skins of these birds, and founded merely in the very extraordinary nature of their plumage, and the circumstance of such skins being always sold without the legs. Birds of paradise generally associate in flocks of forty or fifty together. They form their nests in trees, and feed on fruit and insects. Their legs are so short that, when they alight upon the ground, they cannot, without difficulty, rise again into the air. 134. _The BEE CUCKOO, or MOROC_ (Cuculus indicator), _is an African bird somewhat larger than a sparrow, of rusty grey colour above, and whitish beneath; it has naked and black eyelids, a yellow spot on the shoulders, and the feathers of the tail somewhat rust-coloured, marked with white._