But Nierembergius on the contrary affirms, that one that was an eye-witness, and that had taken up one of these Birds newly dead, told him that it had no Feet all. Johnston also gives his suffrage with Nierembergius in this, though with Aldrovandius he rejects the manner of their Incubation.
But unless they can raise themselves from the ground by the stifness of some of the feathers of their Wings, or rather by virtue of those nervous strings which they may have a power to stiffen when they are alive, by transfusing spirits into them, and make them serve as well in stead of Legs to raise them from the ground, as to hang upon the boughs of Trees by, (a slight thing being able to raise or hold up their light feathery bodies in the Aire, as a small twig will us in the Water;) I should rather incline to the testimony of Pighafetta and Clusius then to the judgment of the rest, and believe those Mariners that told him, that the Legs are pulled off by them that take them, and exenterate them and drie them in the Sun, for either their private use or sale.
Which Conclusion would the best salve the credit of Aristotle who long since has so peremptorily pronounced, Histor. Animal. l. 1. c. 1.Ὀτι πτηνὸν μόνον οὐδέν ἐστιν, ὤσπερ νευστικὸν μόνον ἐστὶν ἰχθὺς, That there is not any Bird that onely flies, as the Fish onely swims.
12. But thus our Bird of Paradise is quite flown and vanished into a Figment or Fable. But if any one will condole the loss of so convincing an Argument for a Providence that fits one thing to another, I must take the freedom to tell him, that unless he be a greater admirer of Novelty then a searcher into the indissoluble consequences of things, I shall supply his Meditations with what of this nature is as strongly conclusive, and re-mind him that it will be his own reproach if he cannot spy as clear an inference from an ordinary Truth, as from either an Uncertainty or a Fiction. And in this regard the bringing this doubtful narration into play may not justly seem to no purpose, it carrying so serious and castigatory a piece of pleasantry with it.
The Manucodiata's living on the Dew is no part of the Convictiveness of a Providence in this story: But the being so excellently-well provided of Wings and Feathers, tantâ levitatis supellectile exornata, (as Nierembergius speaks) being so well furnishied with all the advantages for lightness, that it seems harder for her to sink down (as he conceits) then to be born up in the Aire; that a Bird thus fitted for that Region should have no Legs to stand on the Earth, this would be a considerable indication of a discriminative Providence that on purpose avoids all uselesness and superfluities.
The other Remarkable, and it is a notorious one, is the Cavity on the back of the Male and in the breast of the Female, for Incubation.
And the third and last, the use of those strings, as Cardan supposes, for the better keeping them together in this Incubiture.
If these considerations of this strange Story strike so strongly upon thee as to convince thee of a Providence, think it humour and not judgment, if what I put in lieu of them, and is but ordinary, have not the same force with thee.
