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Continued from...Habitat, Appearance and Courtship Dances of the Bird of Paradise
The term Bird of Paradise has been used in
many European languages since the return (6 Sept. 1522) of the first ever
expedition for circumnavigating the globe by Magellan. In December
1521 the voyagers, then at Tidore, one of the Moluccas, were offered by
the ruler of Batchian, as a gift to the King of Spain, two very beautiful
dead birds, as we are told by Antonio Pigafetta, the chronicler of the
voyage (Primo Viaggio intorno al Globo, ed. Amoretti Milano: 1800,
page 156), who is generally believed to have been the first to introduce
these birds to the notice of Europeans.
Pigafetta's account of the Bird
of Paradise
Pigafetta's account contains some details worthy of
attention. It describes the birds as being as big as Thrushes, with a small
head, a long bill, and slender legs like pens used for writing, about as
long as a palm. They had no wings (which were doubtless cut off) but in
their place long feathers of different colours like great plumes (pennacchi),
the
tail like a Thrush's, and all the rest of the feathers, the wings excepted,
of a dull colour. Much of this description fits the only species of Bird
of Paradise that inhabits Batchian, from where the ruler of the island
gave the birds. However, that species remained unknown to naturalists
until Alfred Russell Wallace procured examples in October 1858 (Malay
Archipelago,
ii pages 40-41), and it was subsequently described as
Semioptera wallacii. This latin name still remains today (at
the date of creating this page in April 2006) for the particular species,
known also by the English name of Wallace’s Standardwing.
Maximilianus Transylvanus
Although Pigafetta's account as discussed above was
thought to have been the first record introducing the Bird of Paradise
to general European knowlege, it is now certain that he was anticipated
by Maximilianus Transylvanus, a young man who was residing in the Spanish
court. On the arrival of the survivors of Magellan's company, Maximilianus
Transylvanus promptly wrote to his father, the Archbishop of Salzburg,
an account of their discoveries and spoils, and moreover, sent to him one
of the wonderful birds they had obtained. This account, De Moluccis
insulis [etc] was published at Cologne in the January following (a
facsimile reprint, together with a translation of it, is given by the late
Mr.Henry Stevens of Vermont in his Johann Schoner [etc], edited
by Mr. C. H. Coote (London: 1888)), and the native name of the birds, of
which it seems that five examples were brought home, is given as Mamuco-Diata,
a variant of Manucodiata, meaning the Bird of the Gods, a name
which seemed to have remained in use up to the 19th Century (cf. Crawford,
Malay and English Dictionary,
page 97).
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