passaros

Updated: May 26, 2025

The Malay traders gave them the name of "Manuk dewata," or God's birds; and the Portuguese, finding that they had no feet or wings, and not being able to learn anything authentic about then, called them "Passaros de Col," or Birds of the Sun; while the learned Dutchmen, who wrote in Latin, called them "Avis paradiseus," or Paradise Bird.

Alfred Russel Wallace - The Malay Archipelago, the land of the orang-utan and the bird of paradise; a narrative of travel, with studies of man and nature — Volume 2

Linnaeus asserts that "they feed on the nectar of flowers, and show an equal variety of colour, blue and yellow, orange and green, red and violet." Portuguese naturalists also represent the passaros de sol as footless, their mode of flight concealing the extremities.

Emily Richings - Through the Malay Archipelago