Chapter BHOOT to BIRD OF PARADISE of B by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

Manucode which Buffon adopted for these birds occurs in the form Manucodiáta in some of the following quotations. It is a corruption of the Javanese name Manuk-devata, ‘the Bird of the Gods,’ which our popular term renders with sufficient accuracy. [The Siamese word for ‘bird,’ according to Mr. Skeat, is nok, perhaps from manok.]

c. 1430.—“In majori Java avis præcipua reperitur sine pedibus, instar palumbi, pluma levi, cauda oblonga, semper in arboribus quiescens: caro non editur, pellis et cauda habentur pretiosiores, quibus pro ornamento capitis utuntur.”—N. Conti, in Poggius de Varietate Fortunae, lib. iv.

1552.—“The Kings of the said (Moluccas) began only a few years ago to believe in the immortality of souls, taught by no other argument than this, that they had seen a most beautiful little bird, which never alighted on the ground or on any other terrestrial object, but which they had sometimes seen to come from the sky, that is to say, when it was dead and fell to the ground. And the Machometan traders who traffic in those islands assured them that this little bird was a native of Paradise, and that Paradise was the place where the souls of the dead are; and on this account the princes attached themselves to the sect of the Machometans, because it promised them many marvellous things regarding this place of souls. This little bird they called by the name of Manucodiata.…”—Letter of Maximilian of Transylvania, Sec. to the Emp. Charles V., in Ramusio, i. f. 351v; see also f. 352.

c. 1524.—“He also (the K. of Bachian) gave us for the King of Spain two most beautiful dead birds. These birds are as large as thrushes; they have small heads, long beaks, legs slender like a writing pen, and a span in length; they have no wings, but instead of them long feathers of different colours, like plumes; their tail is like that of the thrush. All the feathers, except those of the wings (?), are of a dark colour; they never fly except when the wind blows. They told us that these birds come from the terrestrial Paradise, and they call them ‘bolon dinata,’ [burung-dewata, same as Javanese Manuk-dewata, supra] that is, divine birds.” —Pigafetta, Hak. Soc. 143.

1598.—“…in these Ilands (Moluccas) onlie is found the bird, which the Portingales call Passaros de Sol, that is Foule of the Sunne, the Italians call it Manu codiatas, and the Latinists Paradiseas, by us called Paradice birdes, for ye beauty of their feathers which passe al other birds: these birds are never seene alive, but being dead they are found vpon the Iland; they flie, as it is said, alwaies into the Sunne, and keepe themselues continually in the ayre…for they haue neither feet nor wings, but onely head and bodie, and the most part tayle.…”—Linschoten, 35; [Hak. Soc. i. 118].

1572.—

“Olha cá pelos mares do Oriente
As infinitas ilhas espalhadas
Aqui as aureas aves, que não decem
Nunca á terra, e só mortas aparecem.”

Camões, x. 132.

Eng. shed by Burton:

“Here see o’er oriental seas bespread
infinite island-groups and alwhere strewed

here dwell the golden fowls, whose home is air,
and never earthward save in death may fare.”

1645.—“…the male and female Manucodiatae, the male having a hollow in the back, in which ’tis reported the female both layes and hatches her eggs.”—Evelyn’s Diary, 4th Feb.

1674.—

“The strangest long-wing’d hawk that flies,
That like a Bird of Paradise,
Or herald’s martlet, has no legs.…”

Hudibras, Pt. ii. cant. 3.

1591.—“As for the story of the Manucodiata or Bird of Paradise, which in the former Age was generally received and accepted for true, even by the Learned, it is now discovered to be a fable, and rejected and exploded by all men” (i.e. that it has no feet).—Ray, Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation, edition 1692, Pt. ii. 147.

1705.—“The Birds of Paradice are about the bigness of a Pidgeon. They are of varying Colours, and are never found or seen alive; neither is it known from whence they come.…”—Funnel, in Dampier’s Voyages, iii. 266-7.

1868.—“When seen in this attitude, the Bird of Paradise really deserves its name, and must be ranked as one of the most beautiful and wonderful of living things.”—Wallace, Malay Archip., 7th edition, 464.