Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/576

558 ornaments of dress, and are very highly prized. In Europe and America, at the present time, they are sought for with avidity, to adorn ladies' hats, etc. The birds and feathers for the European market are principally obtained at Batavia and Singapore, whither the natives of Celebes, and others, bring them from Papua and the



Arroo Islands. In India they derive much of their value from the miraculous virtues which the priests have ascribed to them, causing the creature that produced them to receive the title "Bird of God," Manuco-Dewata; from which Buffon coined the modern French name, Manucode. Dr. Forster suggests, but perhaps without reason, that this bird may have been the phœnix of antiquity.