One day , when he had been left alone for a few minutes , a bird with brilliant plumage came and fluttered round the window , and finally rested on the sill . His feathers were sky-blue and gold , his feet and his beak of such glittering rubies that no one could bear to look at them , his eyes made the brightest diamonds look dull , and on his head he wore a crown . I can not tell you what the crown was made of , but I am quite certain that it was still more splendid than all the rest . As to his voice I can say nothing about that , for the bird never sang at all . In fact , he did nothing but gaze steadily at the King , and as he gazed , the King felt his strength come back to him . In a little while the bird flew into the room , still with his eyes fixed on the King , and at every glance the strength of the sick man became greater , till he was once more as well as he used to be before the Queen died . Filled with joy at his cure , he tried to seize the bird to whom he owed it all , but , swifter than a swallow , it managed to avoid him . In vain he described the bird to his attendants , who rushed at his first call ; in vain they sought the wonderful creature both on horse and foot , and summoned the fowlers to their aid : the bird could nowhere be found . The love the people bore King Peridor was so strong , and the reward he promised was so large , that in the twinkling of an eye every man , woman , and child had fled into the fields , and the towns were quite empty . All this bustle , however , ended in nothing but confusion , and , what was worse , the King soon fell back into the same condition as he was in before . Prince Saphir , who loved his father very dearly , was so unhappy at this that he persuaded himself that he might succeed where the others had failed , and at once prepared himself for a more distant search . In spite of the opposition he met with , he rode away , followed by his household , trusting to chance to help him . He had formed no plan , and there was no reason that he should choose one path more than another . His only idea was to make straight for those spots which were the favourite haunts of birds . But in vain he examined all the hedges and all the thickets ; in vain he questioned everyone he met along the road . The more he sought the less he found . At last he came to one of the largest forests in all the world , composed entirely of cedars . But in spite of the deep shadows cast by the wide-spreading branches of the trees , the grass underneath was soft and green , and covered with the rarest flowers . It seemed to Saphir that this was exactly the place where the birds would choose to live , and he determined not to quit the wood until he had examined it from end to end . And he did more .
He ordered some nets to be prepared and painted of the same colours as the bird 's plumage , thinking XXXXX we are all easily caught by what is like ourselves .
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