(eBook PDF) A Guide to Algorithm Design:

Paradigms, Methods, and Complexity Analysis pdf

download

https://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-a-guide-to-algorithm-
design-paradigms-methods-and-complexity-analysis/

Download more ebook from https://ebooksecure.com

We believe these products will be a great fit for you. Click
the link to download now, or visit ebooksecure.com
to discover even more!

(eBook PDF) Research Methods, Design, and Analysis 13th

Edition

http://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-research-methods-design-
and-analysis-13th-edition/

(eBook PDF) Algorithm Design by Jon Kleinberg

http://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-algorithm-design-by-jon-
kleinberg/

(Original PDF) Algorithm Design and Applications by

Michael T. Goodrich

http://ebooksecure.com/product/original-pdf-algorithm-design-and-
applications-by-michael-t-goodrich/

Modern Control: State-Space Analysis and Design Methods

1st Edition - eBook PDF

https://ebooksecure.com/download/modern-control-state-space-
analysis-and-design-methods-ebook-pdf/
(eBook PDF) Handbook of Research Methods in Complexity
Science: Theory and Applications

http://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-handbook-of-research-
methods-in-complexity-science-theory-and-applications/

(eBook PDF) Data Structures & Algorithm Analysis in C++

4th Edition

http://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-data-structures-
algorithm-analysis-in-c-4th-edition/

Data Structures & Algorithm Analysis in C++ 4th Edition

(eBook PDF)

http://ebooksecure.com/product/data-structures-algorithm-
analysis-in-c-4th-edition-ebook-pdf/

(eBook PDF) Qualitative Psychology: A Practical Guide

to Research Methods 3rd Edition

http://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-qualitative-psychology-
a-practical-guide-to-research-methods-3rd-edition/

(eBook PDF) Research Design and Methods: A Process

Approach 11th Edition

http://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-research-design-and-
methods-a-process-approach-11th-edition/
 Computer Science/Computer Engineering/Computing Chapman & Hall/CRC
Applied Algorithms and Data Structures Series

ALGORITHM DESIGN
“This book is a great technical arsenal for every graduate student and post-
graduate researcher. By providing a treasure trove of concrete algorithmic A GUIDE TO
ALGORITHM
examples, the book trains the reader to recognize clues that indicate the
complexity of a broad range of algorithmic problems, while supplying

A GUIDE TO
a battery of techniques for solving a particular problem in hand. …”
—Umit Catalyurek, Professor, Ohio State University

“This book is unique among texts on algorithmics in its emphasis on how

to ‘think algorithmically’ rather than just how to solve specific (classes of)
DESIGN
algorithmic problems. The authors skillfully engage the reader in a journey Paradigms, Methods, and Complexity Analysis
of algorithmic self-discovery as they cover a broad spectrum of issues …
I shall be very happy to have this text on my bookshelf as a reference on
methods as well as results.”
—Arnold L. Rosenberg, Research Professor, Northeastern University, and
Distinguished University Professor Emeritus, University of Massachusetts
Amherst

“This book presents a well-balanced approach to theory and algorithms

and introduces difficult concepts using rich motivating examples. It
demonstrates the applicability of fundamental principles and analysis
techniques to practical problems facing computer scientists and engineers.
You do not have to be a theoretician to enjoy and learn from this book.”
—Rami Melhem, Professor of Computer Science, University of Pittsburgh

Presenting a complementary perspective to standard books on algorithms,

A Guide to Algorithm Design: Paradigms, Methods, and Complexity

Benoit, Robert,
Analysis provides a roadmap for readers to determine the difficulty of an

and
algorithmic problem by finding an optimal solution or proving complexity
results. It gives a practical treatment of algorithmic complexity and guides Vivien
readers in solving algorithmic problems. The book offers a comprehensive
set of problems with solutions as well as in-depth case studies that
demonstrate how to assess the complexity of a new problem.

Anne Benoit, Yves Robert,

K11226 and Frédéric Vivien

K11226_Cover.indd 1 5/31/13 9:17 AM

 vii

Solution to Exercise 3.5: Scheduling independent tasks with

deadlines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Solution to Exercise 3.6: Edge matroids . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Solution to Exercise 3.7: Huffman code . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
3.7 Bibliographical notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

4 Dynamic programming 81
4.1 The coin changing problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
4.2 The knapsack problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
4.3 Designing dynamic-programming algorithms . . . . . . . . . 86
4.4 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Exercise 4.1: Matrix chains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Exercise 4.2: The library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Exercise 4.3: Polygon triangulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Exercise 4.4: Square of ones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Exercise 4.5: The wind band . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Exercise 4.6: Ski rental . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Exercise 4.7: Building set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
4.5 Solutions to exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Solution to Exercise 4.1: Matrix chains . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Solution to Exercise 4.2: The library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Solution to Exercise 4.3: Polygon triangulation . . . . . . . . 93
Solution to Exercise 4.4: Square of ones . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Solution to Exercise 4.5: The wind band . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Solution to Exercise 4.6: Ski rental . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Solution to Exercise 4.7: Building set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
4.6 Bibliographical notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

5 Amortized analysis 105

5.1 Methods for amortized analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
5.1.1 Running examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
5.1.2 Aggregate analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
5.1.3 Accounting method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
5.1.4 Potential method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
5.2 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Exercise 5.1: Binary counter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Exercise 5.2: Inserting and deleting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Exercise 5.3: Stack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Exercise 5.4: Deleting half the elements . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Exercise 5.5: Searching and inserting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Exercise 5.6: Splay trees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Exercise 5.7: Half perimeter of a polygon . . . . . . . . . . . 112
5.3 Solutions to exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Solution to Exercise 5.1: Binary counter . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Solution to Exercise 5.2: Inserting and deleting . . . . . . . . 113

© 2014 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

viii

Solution to Exercise 5.3: Stack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

Solution to Exercise 5.4: Deleting half the elements . . . . . . 115
Solution to Exercise 5.5: Searching and inserting . . . . . . . 116
Solution to Exercise 5.6: Splay trees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Solution to Exercise 5.7: Half perimeter of a polygon . . . . . 119
5.4 Bibliographical notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

II NP-completeness and beyond 123

6 NP-completeness 125
6.1 A practical approach to complexity theory . . . . . . . . . . 125
6.2 Problem classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
6.2.1 Problems in P . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
6.2.2 Problems in NP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
6.3 NP-complete problems and reduction theory . . . . . . . . . 132
6.3.1 Polynomial reduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
6.3.2 Cook’s theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
6.3.3 Growing the class NPC of NP-complete problems . . . 134
6.3.4 Optimization problems versus decision problems . . . 135
6.4 Examples of NP-complete problems and reductions . . . . . 136
6.4.1 3-SAT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
6.4.2 CLIQUE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
6.4.3 VERTEX-COVER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
6.4.4 Scheduling problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
6.4.5 Other famous NP-complete problems . . . . . . . . . . 142
6.5 Importance of problem definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
6.6 Strong NP-completeness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
6.7 Why does it matter? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
6.8 Bibliographical notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

7 Exercises on NP-completeness 149

7.1 Easy reductions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Exercise 7.1: Wheel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Exercise 7.2: Knights of the round table . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Exercise 7.3: Variants of CLIQUE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Exercise 7.4: Path with vertex pairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Exercise 7.5: VERTEX-COVER with even degrees . . . . . . 150
Exercise 7.6: Around 2-PARTITION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
7.2 About graph coloring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Exercise 7.7: COLOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Exercise 7.8: 3-COLOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Exercise 7.9: 3-COLOR-PLAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
7.3 Scheduling problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Exercise 7.10: Scheduling independent tasks with p processors 152

© 2014 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

 ix

Exercise 7.11: Scheduling with two processors . . . . . . . . . 152

7.4 More involved reductions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Exercise 7.12: Transitive subchain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Exercise 7.13: INDEPENDENT SET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Exercise 7.14: DOMINATING SET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Exercise 7.15: Carpenter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Exercise 7.16: k-center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Exercise 7.17: Variants of 3-SAT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Exercise 7.18: Variants of SAT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
7.5 2-PARTITION is NP-complete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Exercise 7.19: SUBSET-SUM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Exercise 7.20: NP-completeness of 2-PARTITION . . . . . . 155
7.6 Solutions to exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Solution to Exercise 7.1: Wheel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Solution to Exercise 7.2: Knights of the round table . . . . . 156
Solution to Exercise 7.3: Variants of CLIQUE . . . . . . . . . 157
Solution to Exercise 7.4: Path with vertex pairs . . . . . . . . 158
Solution to Exercise 7.5: VERTEX-COVER with even degrees 158
Solution to Exercise 7.6: Around 2-PARTITION . . . . . . . 159
Solution to Exercise 7.7: COLOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Solution to Exercise 7.8: 3-COLOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
Solution to Exercise 7.9: 3-COLOR-PLAN . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Solution to Exercise 7.10: Scheduling independent tasks with
p processors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Solution to Exercise 7.11: Scheduling with two processors . . 166
Solution to Exercise 7.12: Transitive subchain . . . . . . . . . 167
Solution to Exercise 7.13: INDEPENDENT SET . . . . . . . 168
Solution to Exercise 7.14: DOMINATING SET . . . . . . . . 169
Solution to Exercise 7.15: Carpenter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Solution to Exercise 7.16: k-center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Solution to Exercise 7.17: Variants of 3-SAT . . . . . . . . . . 172
Solution to Exercise 7.18: Variants of SAT . . . . . . . . . . . 174
Solution to Exercise 7.19: SUBSET-SUM . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Solution to Exercise 7.20: NP-completeness of 2-PARTITION 177
7.7 Bibliographical notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

8 Beyond NP-completeness 179

8.1 Approximation results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
8.1.1 Approximation algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
8.1.2 Vertex cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
8.1.3 Traveling salesman problem (TSP) . . . . . . . . . . . 182
8.1.4 Bin packing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
8.1.5 2-PARTITION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
8.2 Polynomial problem instances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
8.2.1 Partitioning problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

© 2014 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

x

8.2.2 Assessing problem complexity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

8.3 Linear programming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
8.3.1 Formal definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
8.3.2 Relaxation and rounding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
8.4 Randomized algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
8.4.1 The algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
8.4.2 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
8.5 Branch-and-bound and backtracking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
8.5.1 Backtracking: The n queens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
8.5.2 Branch-and-bound: The knapsack . . . . . . . . . . . 204
8.5.3 Graph algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
8.6 Bibliographical notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

9 Exercises going beyond NP-completeness 211

9.1 Approximation results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Exercise 9.1: Single machine scheduling . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Exercise 9.2: SUBSET-SUM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Exercise 9.3: SET-COVER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Exercise 9.4: VERTEX-COVER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Exercise 9.5: Scheduling independent tasks in parallel . . . . 215
Exercise 9.6: Point clustering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Exercise 9.7: k-center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Exercise 9.8: Knapsack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
9.2 Dealing with NP-complete problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Exercise 9.9: Mixed integer linear program for replica place-
ment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Exercise 9.10: A randomized algorithm for independent set . 218
Exercise 9.11: Branch-and-bound applied to MAX-SAT . . . 219
9.3 Solutions to exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Solution to Exercise 9.1: Single machine scheduling . . . . . . 219
Solution to Exercise 9.2: SUBSET-SUM . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Solution to Exercise 9.3: SET-COVER . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Solution to Exercise 9.4: VERTEX-COVER . . . . . . . . . . 224
Solution to Exercise 9.5: Scheduling independent tasks in par-
allel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
Solution to Exercise 9.6: Point clustering . . . . . . . . . . . 228
Solution to Exercise 9.7: k-center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Solution to Exercise 9.8: Knapsack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
Solution to Exercise 9.9: Mixed integer linear program for
replica placement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
Solution to Exercise 9.10: A randomized algorithm for inde-
pendent set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Solution to Exercise 9.11: Branch-and-bound applied to MAX-
SAT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
9.4 Bibliographical notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238

© 2014 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

 xi

III Reasoning on problem complexity 239

10 Reasoning to assess a problem complexity 241
10.1 Basic reasoning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
10.1.1 Polynomial instances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
10.1.2 NP-complete instances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
10.2 Set of problems with polynomial-time algorithms . . . . . . . 243
10.3 Set of NP-complete problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
10.3.1 Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
10.3.2 Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246

11 Chains-on-chains partitioning 249

11.1 Optimal algorithms for homogeneous resources . . . . . . . . 249
11.1.1 Dynamic-programming algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
11.1.2 Binary search algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
11.1.3 Improved algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
11.2 Variants of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
11.2.1 Communication costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
11.2.2 Chain of heterogeneous resources . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
11.3 Extension to a clique of heterogeneous resources . . . . . . . 254
11.3.1 NP-completeness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
11.3.2 Practical solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
11.3.3 Integer linear program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
11.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258

12 Replica placement in tree networks 261

12.1 Access policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
12.1.1 Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
12.1.2 Impact of the policies on the existence of a solution . 263
12.1.3 Impact of the policies on the cost of a solution . . . . 264
12.2 Complexity results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
12.2.1 Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
12.2.2 MinNb problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
12.2.3 MinCost problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
12.2.4 Integer linear program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
12.3 Variants of the replica placement problem . . . . . . . . . . . 279
12.3.1 Enforcing a quality of service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
12.3.2 Power-aware replica placement . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
12.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286

13 Packet routing 287

13.1 MEDP: Maximum edge-disjoint paths . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
13.1.1 Problem statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
13.1.2 Naive greedy algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
13.1.3 Short-requests-first greedy algorithm . . . . . . . . . . 291

© 2014 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

xii

13.1.4 Inapproximability result . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292

13.2 PRVP: Packet routing with variable-paths . . . . . . . . . . 294
13.2.1 Problem statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294
13.2.2 Bounding optimal makespan via linear programming . 295
13.2.3 Routing algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
13.2.4 Steady-state approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
13.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

14 Matrix product, or tiling the unit square 303

14.1 Problem motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
14.2 NP-completeness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
14.3 A guaranteed heuristic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
14.3.1 The ColPeriSum(s) problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
14.3.2 Performance guarantee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
14.3.3 Looking for a better solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
14.4 Related problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320

15 Online scheduling 321

15.1 Flow time optimization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
15.2 Competitive analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
15.2.1 Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
15.2.2 Method to establish a competitive analysis result . . . 327
15.3 Makespan optimization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334
15.3.1 List scheduling algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
15.3.2 Randomized optimization of makespan . . . . . . . . . 338
15.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347

References 349

Index 359

© 2014 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

List of exercises

1.1 Longest balanced section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

1.2 Find the star . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.3 Breaking boxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.4 Maximum of n integers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.5 Maximum and minimum of n integers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.6 Maximum and second maximum of n integers . . . . . . . . . 11
1.7 Merging two sorted sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.8 The toolbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.9 Sorting a small number of objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

2.1 Product of two polynomials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

2.2 Toeplitz matrices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
2.3 Maximum sum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
2.4 Boolean matrices: The Four-Russians algorithm . . . . . . . . 41
2.5 Matrix multiplication and inversion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

3.1 Interval cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

3.2 Memory usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
3.3 Scheduling dependent tasks on several machines . . . . . . . . 65
3.4 Scheduling independent tasks with priorities . . . . . . . . . . 66
3.5 Scheduling independent tasks with deadlines . . . . . . . . . . 66
3.6 Edge matroids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
3.7 Huffman code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

4.1 Matrix chains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

4.2 The library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
4.3 Polygon triangulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
4.4 Square of ones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
4.5 The wind band . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
4.6 Ski rental . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
4.7 Building set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

5.1 Binary counter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

5.2 Inserting and deleting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
5.3 Stack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
5.4 Deleting half the elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
5.5 Searching and inserting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

xiii

© 2014 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

xiv

5.6 Splay trees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

5.7 Half perimeter of a polygon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

7.1 Wheel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

7.2 Knights of the round table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
7.3 Variants of CLIQUE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
7.4 Path with vertex pairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
7.5 VERTEX-COVER with even degrees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
7.6 Around 2-PARTITION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
7.7 COLOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
7.8 3-COLOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
7.9 3-COLOR-PLAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
7.10 Scheduling independent tasks with p processors . . . . . . . . 152
7.11 Scheduling with two processors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
7.12 Transitive subchain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
7.13 INDEPENDENT SET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
7.14 DOMINATING SET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
7.15 Carpenter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
7.16 k-center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
7.17 Variants of 3-SAT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
7.18 Variants of SAT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
7.19 SUBSET-SUM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
7.20 NP-completeness of 2-PARTITION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

9.1 Single machine scheduling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

9.2 SUBSET-SUM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
9.3 SET-COVER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
9.4 VERTEX-COVER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
9.5 Scheduling independent tasks in parallel . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
9.6 Point clustering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
9.7 k-center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
9.8 Knapsack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
9.9 Mixed integer linear program for replica placement . . . . . . 218
9.10 A randomized algorithm for independent set . . . . . . . . . . 218
9.11 Branch-and-bound applied to MAX-SAT . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

© 2014 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

Preface

Objective
YABA? Yet Another Book on Algorithms?
No thanks. There are so many good books on the design of algorithms that
it is hard to choose and pick one. If asked to name our two favorite refer-
ences, we would recommend Introduction to Algorithms by Cormen, Leiserson,
Rivest, and Stein [27] and Algorithms by Dasgupta, Papadimitriou, and Vazi-
rani [30]. For sure, this book does not intend to compete with such established
monuments.
Instead, this book proposes a complementary perspective. It aims at guid-
ing students and researchers who need to solve problems, either by finding
optimal algorithms or by assessing new complexity results. In a nutshell, the
main objective of this book is to outline the roadmap to follow, and to prac-
tice all the corresponding steps, in order to determine the complexity of a
problem.

Intended audience and use

The target audience for this book is graduate students and postgraduate re-
searchers in computer science and related fields.
This book does have prerequisites: We expect the reader to have some
experience with the design of algorithms, maybe through following an under-
graduate course in the field, or through reading a few chapters of the reference
books quoted above. In particular, we assume that the reader is familiar with
classic algorithms, such as comparison-based sorting (e.g., quick sort or merge
sort), and has a good knowledge of elementary graph theory, including:
• traversals (depth-first, breadth-first, connected components);
• shortest paths (one-source, such as Dijkstra, all-pairs, such as Floyd–
Warshall);
• maximum matchings in bipartite graphs.
In fact, one needs to know only that efficient algorithms exist to solve these
graph theory problems, but, of course, it is better to understand how they
work. Because excellent external sources already cover these topics, we refer
to them.
Also, we assume that readers have already been exposed, at least up to
some extent, to the basic paradigms of algorithm design: divide-and-conquer,
greedy algorithms, dynamic programming, and amortized analysis. But here,
rather than (or in addition to) referring to external sources, this book provides

xv

© 2014 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

xvi

extensive material so that the readers can assess their skills by solving the
many exercises in Part I.
Part II of this book can be used to teach an undergraduate or graduate class
on NP-completeness, with a focus on polynomial reductions, and a survey of
approaches that go beyond NP-completeness.
Part III of this book can be used to teach a graduate class on advanced
algorithms, either in the form of a series of classes presenting the case studies,
or in the form of projects assigned to students.

Book content and organization

The book is composed of three main parts:
• Part I: Polynomial-time algorithms: Exercises
• Part II: NP-completeness and beyond
• Part III: Reasoning on problem complexity

Part I aims at training the reader to design efficient algorithms. To do

so, we provide a comprehensive set of problems to investigate. Problems are
organized along the main design principles, which we each revisit through a
brief introduction and a series of related exercises. This leads to five chapters:
1. Introduction to complexity
2. Divide-and-conquer
3. Greedy algorithms
4. Dynamic programming
5. Amortized analysis
All solutions to exercises are provided.

Part II deals with NP-completeness and beyond. Our coverage of NP-

completeness focuses on polynomial reductions. We deliberately ignore Tur-
ing machines and the theoretic arsenal. The (small) price to pay is to admit
Cook’s theorem, the existence of the canonical NP-complete problem, for-
mula satisfiability, a.k.a. SAT. In Part II, we also cover approaches that go
beyond NP-completeness: identifying polynomial instances, approximation
algorithms, linear programming, randomized algorithms, branch-and-bound,
and backtracking. Part II consists of four chapters:
1. NP-completeness
2. Exercises on NP-completeness
3. Beyond NP-completeness
4. Exercises going beyond NP-completeness
All solutions to exercises are provided.

Part III constitutes the main originality of the book. It is devoted to case
studies whose goal is to provide the reader with tools and techniques to assess
problem complexity: which instances are polynomial, and which are NP-hard,
and what do to for the latter. Part III consists of an introduction summarizing

© 2014 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

 xvii

how to assess the complexity of a new problem, and it is illustrated with five
case studies:
1. Chains-on-chains partitioning
2. Replica placement in tree networks
3. Packet routing
4. Matrix product, or tiling the unit square
5. Online scheduling

Thanks
The content of this book, or at least preliminary versions of it, has been
used to teach courses at École Normale Supérieure de Lyon. We are grate-
ful to the students for their feedback and suggestions. We also thank all
our colleagues who helped gather the problems of Part I. The teaching assis-
tants when Yves Robert was teaching the Algorithms course were (ordering by
year) Odile Millet-Botta, Tanguy Risset, Alain Darte, Bruno Durand, Frédéric
Vivien, Jean-Christophe Dubacq, Olivier Bodini, Daniel Hirschkoff, Matthieu
Exbrayat, Natacha Portier, Emmanuel Hyon, Eric Thierry, Michel Morvan,
and Yves Caniou. The teaching assistants when Anne Benoit took over were
(ordering by year) Victor Poupet, Damien Regnault, Benjamin Depardon,
Jean-François Pineau, Clément Rezvoy, Christophe Mouilleron, Fanny Du-
fossé, and Anne-Cécile Orgerie.
We also wish to thank the following people who have contributed to some
of the content by their insightful suggestions, their own previously published
work, or their help reviewing draft chapters: Guillaume Aupy, Marin Bougeret,
Jean-Yves l’Excellent, Arnaud Legrand, Loris Marchal, Paul Renaud-Goud,
Veronika Sonigo, and Bora Uçar.
Finally, a word of caution on bibliographical notes: Some exercises have ap-
peared in many sources, and the references that we give may well not be the
original ones. Also, the absence of any reference is not a claim for originality!
However, all solutions are ours, and they have been tested and verified by the
students at ENS Lyon, the teaching assistants, and ourselves (but we keep the
sole responsibility for errors). We welcome comments and suggestions to our
e-mail addresses.

Anne Benoit, [email protected]

Yves Robert, [email protected]
Frédéric Vivien, [email protected]

© 2014 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

© 2014 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
 Part I

Polynomial-time
algorithms: Exercises

© 2014 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

© 2014 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
Chapter 1
Introduction to complexity

This chapter revisits basic notions on the cost of an algorithm and on the
complexity of a problem. To illustrate these notions, in Section 1.1, we study
the problem of computing xn , given x and n (where n is a positive integer).
Then, in Section 1.2, we recall the classical asymptotic notations O, o, Θ,
and Ω. Finally, exercises are proposed in Section 1.3, with their solutions in
Section 1.4.

1.1 On the complexity to compute xn

We study the problem of computing xn , given x and n (where n is a positive
integer). Note that x is not necessarily a number; it can be a matrix, a
polynomial with several unknowns, or any mathematical object for which the
multiplication is defined.
We let y0 = x, and we use the following “rule of the game”: If I have already
computed y1 , y2 , . . . , yi−1 , then I can compute yi as a product of any of two
previous temporary results: yi = yj yk , with 0 6 j, k 6 i 1. The goal is
to reach xn as soon as possible, i.e., to minimize the cost of the algorithm,
expressed in the number of multiplications. The cost is the first index m such
that ym = xn .
We define Opt(n) as the minimum index m such that ym = xn , where the
minimum is taken over all algorithms, i.e., all possible sequences of yi . The
cost of an algorithm, therefore, is always greater than or equal to Opt(n).
Formally,

9y0 = x, y1 , y2 , . . . , ym−1 , ym = xn ,
 
Opt(n) = min m .
8i 2 [1, m], 9j, k 2 [0, i 1], yi = yj yk

In the following, we present four methods to compute xn , and we compare

their costs. Then we end the section with some complexity results that aim
at providing bounds on Opt(n).

© 2014 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

4 Chapter 1. Introduction to complexity

1.1.1 Naive method

Let us consider the following naive algorithm: yi = y0 yi−1 . We have
yn−1 = xn , and thus a cost of n 1.

1.1.2 Binary method

We can easily find a method more efficient than the naive algorithm:
 n/2
n x xn/2 if n is even,
x = bn/2c
x xbn/2c x if n is odd.
This algorithm can be formulated as follows: We write n in binary, and
then we replace each “1” by SX and each “0” by S, and we remove the first
SX. The word that we obtain gives a method to compute xn . The i-th letter
indicates how to compute yi ; letter S corresponds to a squaring operation
(yi = yi−1 yi−1 ), while letter X corresponds to a multiplying by x operation
(yi = yi−1 y0 ).
For instance, for n = 23 (n=10111), we obtain SX S SX SX SX, and after
removing the first SX, we obtain the word SSXSXSX. Therefore, we compute,
in order, y1 = y0 y0 = x2 , y2 = y1 y1 = x4 , y3 = y2 y0 = x5 , y4 = y3 y3 =
x10 , y5 = y4 y0 = x11 , y6 = y5 y5 = x22 , and finally y7 = y6 y0 = x23 .
The correction of the algorithm is easy to justify from the properties of
binary decomposition. The cost is blog(n)c + ν(n) 1, where ν(n) is the
number of 1s in the binary writing of n. ν(n) 1 is thus the number of Xs,
and blog(n)c is the number of Ss in the word. Logarithms are taken in base 2
here, and this will be the case throughout the book unless specified otherwise.
In the example n = 23, there are four Ss and three Xs, and the cost is,
therefore, 7. This value is also obtained with the formula.
Note that this binary method is not optimal; for instance, with n = 15,
we get the word SXSXSX, leading to six multiplications, while one could
notice that 15 = 3 5, that we need two multiplications to compute z = x3
(z = (x x) x), and then three additional ones to compute x15 = z 5 (with
the binary method: z 2 , z 4 , z 5 ).

1.1.3 Factorization method

This method is based on the factorization of n, that is applied recursively
when n > 2:
 p q
n (x ) if p is the smallest prime factor of n (n = p q),
x =
xn−1 x if n is a prime number.
For instance, with this method, for n = 15, we obtain the computation
described above, i.e., x15 = (x3 )5 = x3 (x3 )4 , leading to five multiplications:
y1 = y0 y0 = x2 , y2 = y1 y0 = x3 , y3 = y2 y2 = (x3 )2 , y4 = y3 y3 = (x3 )4 ,
y5 = y4 y2 = (x3 )5 = x15 .

© 2014 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

 1.1. On the complexity to compute xn 5

Note that if n is a power of 2, this method is identical to the binary method.

Also, this factorization method is not optimal. For instance, with n = 33, we
have seven multiplications (x33 = (x3 )11 = x3 (x3 )10 = x3 ((x3 )2 )5 =
x3 z z 4 , with z = (x3 )2 ), while the binary method requires only six
5
multiplications (x33 = x x2 ). Note also that there is an infinity of numbers
for which the factorization method is better than the binary method (n =
15 2k ), and reciprocally (n = 33 2k ).
However, we need to emphasize the fact that the cost of decomposing n
into prime numbers is not accounted in this formulation, while this would
be necessary to correctly quantify the cost of the factorization method. The
problem is that we do not know, as of today, how to decompose n in polynomial
time. This problem is indeed still open.

1.1.4 Knuth’s tree method

The last method that we detail consists in using Knuth’s tree [62], illustrated
in Figure 1.1. The path from the root of the tree to n indicates a sequence of
exponents from which we can compute efficiently xn .

3 4

5 6 8

7 10 9 12 16

14 11 13 15 20 18 24 17 32

19 21 28 22 23 26 25 30 40 27 36 48 33 34 64

FIGURE 1.1: The first seven levels of Knuth’s tree.

Building the tree. The root of the tree is 1. The tree is then built by
induction. The (k + 1)-th level of the tree is defined from the first k levels as
follows. Consider each node j of the k-th level from the left to the right, and
create nodes j + 1, j + a1 , j + a2 , . . . , j + ak−1 = 2j at level k + 1, as children of
node j, in this order from left to right, where 1, a1 , . . . , ak−1 = j is the path
from the root to j. We do not add a node in the tree if there is already a node
with the same value.

© 2014 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

6 Chapter 1. Introduction to complexity

The algorithm. The algorithm simply consists of finding n in the tree (it
appears only once by construction) and extracting nodes on the path from the
root to n: 1, a1 , . . . , n. At each step of the algorithm, we compute yi = xai as
a product of two previous temporary results, which is possible by construction
of the tree. The number of products to be done, i.e., the cost of the algorithm,
is equal to the length of the path.

Statistics. Some interesting statistics are extracted from Knuth’s book [62].
The smallest numbers for which the tree method is not optimal are n = 77,
n = 154, and n = 233. The smallest number for which the tree method
is better both to the binary and the factorization methods is n = 23. The
smallest number for which the tree method is worse than the factorization
method is n = 19, 879 = 103 193, and such cases are rare; for n 6 100, 000,
the tree method is better than the factorization method 88, 803 times, it is
equivalent 11, 191 times, and it is worse than the factorization method only
6 times.

At this point, we have several algorithms, but we do not know anything on

the value of Opt(n) yet. To assess the complexity of the problem, we have to
provide bounds or asymptotic estimates for Opt(n).

1.1.5 Complexity results

THEOREM 1.1. For all integer n > 1, Opt(n) > dlog(n)e.
Proof. Let us consider an algorithm that computes xn in m steps. Recall that
yi is the intermediate result at step i of the algorithm and thus ym = xn . Let
α(i) be the integer such that yi = xα(i) , for 1 6 i 6 m. Then we prove by
induction that α(i) 6 2i .
Initially, we have y0 = x, and thus α(0) = 1 6 1 = 20 .
For 1 6 i 6 m, there exist j and k (0 6 j, k < i) such that yi = yj yk , by
definition of the algorithm. Therefore, we have α(i) = α(j)+α(k), and we can
apply the induction hypothesis on j and k, leading to α(j) 6 2j 6 2i−1 , and
α(k) 6 2k 6 2i−1 . Finally, we have α(i) 6 2i−1 + 2i−1 = 2i , which concludes
the proof.
Intuitively, the proof expresses the fact that we cannot do better at each
step than doubling the exponent. Thanks to this theorem and to the study
of the binary method, whose number of steps is bounded by 2blog(n)c (recall
that log(n) denotes log2 (n)), we have the following result for all n > 2:

Opt(n)
16 6 2.
dlog(n)e

Opt(n)
THEOREM 1.2. lim = 1.
n→∞ log(n)

© 2014 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
just to take a little and leave the rest. We are so greedy that we
always eat the whole fig, but then we are not Birds of Paradise.
But now there is one particular fruit which the Red Bird of Paradise
likes better than any other, much better, even, than a ripe fig. It is a
fruit which I do not know the name of, in fact I am not quite sure
that it has a name, except in some language which we would neither
of us understand. But you know what an arum lily is, and in those
forests that I told you of there is a kind of arum lily which climbs up
trees, for there are climbing lilies there as well as climbing palm-
trees. This climbing arum lily has a red fruit, and it is this red fruit
which the Red Bird of Paradise thinks so exceedingly nice. It will go
anywhere to get that fruit, and the naked black man with frizzly hair
knows that it will; so he makes a trap for it with the very fruit that it
is so fond of.
But besides the fruit, two other things are necessary for making this
trap; one of them is a forked stick like the handle of a catapult, and
the other is some string. The Papuan soon cuts the stick, either with
a knife that he has bought of a white man, or with a sharp piece of
stone or flint, and the string he makes from some creeper, or by
rolling the inner bark of a tree between his hands. When he has
done this he takes the fruit and ties it to the forked stick, then he
climbs up a tree that he knows the Red Birds of Paradise come to
perch on, and ties the stick, with the fruit fastened to it, to one of
the branches. To do this he takes a very long piece of string, one
end of which hangs right down to the ground, and he ties it so
cleverly that he has only to pull the string for the stick, with the fruit
on it, to come away from the branch, just as a sash that is tied in a
bow will come undone when you pull one of the ends. Then the
black Papuan climbs down from the tree, again, and sits underneath
it with the end of the long string in his hand, all ready to pull it when
the right time comes.
Sometimes it will not be long before a Red Bird of Paradise comes to
the tree, sometimes the Papuan will have to sit there the whole day
or even for two or three days, for he is very patient and will not go
away till he has done what he came to do. All savages are like that;
they are ever so much more patient than civilised people who wear
clothes. But whenever the poor Red Bird of Paradise does come, he
is sure to see the fruit, and then he is sure to fly to it, to eat it, and
then he is sure to get caught in the string. For the string has a
noose in it which gets round his legs, and the frizzly-haired man
underneath, who is watching the Bird of Paradise all the time, just
pulls the cord, and down he comes as well as the stick. You see he
cannot fly very well with the stick fastened to him, and, however
much he tries to, it is no use, for the black man has only to keep
pulling the string.
That is how the poor Red Bird of Paradise is caught, and as soon as
he has caught him the black frizzly-haired man kills him and skins
him—I need hardly tell you that he does that, for you know in whose
service he is. Then the black man takes the skin to a yellow man,
who buys it of him and cheats him a little, and the yellow man takes
it to a white man who buys it of him and cheats him more, and it all
happens just the same as it did with the Great Bird of Paradise, until
the skin is lying on the floor of the warehouse, with all those other
beautiful skins of poor beautiful birds—all killed to be put into the
hats of women whose hearts the wicked little demon has frozen. Is it
not shocking? But you know how to stop it. You have only to make
your mother promise—yes, promise—never to wear a hat that has
the skin or any of the feathers of a Red Bird of Paradise in it. Make
her promise this before reading the next chapter.
 CHAPTER V
The Lesser, Black, Blue, and Golden
Birds of Paradise
Now I have told you about two very beautiful Birds of Paradise, and
in this chapter I shall tell you about some others; at least I shall try
to tell you what they are like, because not so very much is known
about their habits, what they do, or how they live. That is because
they live in such wild parts of the world, in such deep, dense forests,
and on such high, steep hills. Not many travellers have been into
these out-of-the-way places, and those that have gone there,
instead of trying to watch them and find out all about them—which
would have been so interesting—have shot at them with their guns
whenever they have seen them, and have either killed them or
driven them away. It is not by killing birds or by driving them away
that you can find out much about their habits.
It would be much better if these travellers were to take a good pair
of glasses and were to sit down in the forests or on the hills and
watch the birds through the glasses whenever they saw them; for
with a good pair of glasses one can watch birds even when they do
not come very near to one. Then we should know something about
them, and the more we know about a bird or any other living
creature the more interesting it becomes for us. One cannot be very
interested in something that one knows nothing about, but as one
begins to know even a little about it, it begins to get interesting
directly. But then, why is it that the travellers who go out to these
countries take guns with them instead of glasses, and shoot the
birds—as well as other animals—instead of watching them? That is a
question which I cannot answer. All I can tell you is that it is as I
say, and I am afraid the wicked little demon has something to do
with it. But now we must get on, and first we come to the Lesser
Bird of Paradise.
The Lesser Bird of Paradise is something like the Great Bird of
Paradise, only it is not quite so handsome and not nearly so big—
which, of course, is what you would expect from its name. Where
the Great Bird of Paradise is brown the lesser one is brown too, but
it is a lighter brown, not such a nice, rich, coffee-coloured one as the
other, and, on the breast, this brown colour does not change into a
blackish-violet or a browny-purple as you know it does in the Great
Bird of Paradise—it is brown there just the same. On the back,
though, the Lesser Bird of Paradise is all yellow, so that here, if you
remember, it has the advantage; but then the long plumes on each
side under the wings are not so long as in the Great Bird of Paradise,
and they have only just a tinge of orange in them, instead of being
of the beautiful golden-orange colour that his ones are. The tips of
them, too, are white instead of mauvy-brown, and the two funny
feathers in the tail are much shorter than the Great Bird of Paradise's
funny feathers.
 THE LESSER BIRD OF PARADISE
But although the Lesser Bird of Paradise is not such a beautiful bird
as the Great Bird of Paradise is, still it is a very beautiful bird indeed
—what Bird of Paradise is not?—and as it is commoner than the
other Birds of Paradise and easier to get, it is the one that is most
often killed and put into the hats that the women with the frozen
hearts wear; which is why I want you to jump up and throw your
arms round your mother's neck and make her promise never, never
to wear a hat that has a Lesser Bird of Paradise in it.
And now, what would you say to a Black Bird of Paradise? For there
is one—yes, and such a splendid bird. “Oh, but,” you will say, “if he
is black he cannot be so very beautiful, for he cannot be of all sorts
of beautiful colours like the other ones.” But have you not heard of a
black diamond? That is black, but in its blackness all sorts of
wonderful colours are lying asleep, and sometimes they wake up and
flash out of it, as the sun's rays do out of a dark, stormy cloud, and
then they go back into it again and are lost, as the sun's rays are
lost when the sun goes in. Yes, they are asleep, those colours, and
whilst they are asleep the diamond is really black, but when they
wake up and begin to gleam and flash, and sparkle, and shoot
about, then it is not a black diamond any more, although we may
call it so.
And there may be a dark, deep cavern, so dark and so deep that you
would be quite afraid to go into it, especially at night. But some
gipsies, who were not afraid, have gone into it and have lighted a
fire, and the flames leap up and glimmer through the smoke, and
then sink for a moment and shoot up again, and fall on the sides
and roof of the cavern, and make a deep glow in its mouth, and
flicker on the leaves of the trees outside, and send out long tongues
of flame that make a red light in the air and lick the darkness off
everything that they touch. That cavern was dark and black before
the fire was lighted in it, and when the fire goes out it will be dark
and black again, but it is not dark and black just now, whilst the red
fire is burning.
Or it may be a dark night, very dark and stormy, so dark that it is
difficult for people who are out in it to find their way, whilst people
who only look out of the window, say that it is a pitch-dark night.
But now the rain is beginning to fall, and it comes down faster and
faster, and there is a muttering in the dull sky, and, all at once, a
flash of lightning leaps out of the darkness, cutting it as though with
a red, jagged knife, and for an instant it is day, and you see the
leaves on the trees, and the rain-drops falling through the air, and
the fields with haystacks standing in them, or rivers winding through
them, and the distant hills, and the line where the earth meets the
heavens. Then, all in a moment—almost before you can say “Oh,”
and quite before the great clap of thunder that follows the lightning-
flash—it is night—deep, dark, black night—again. The night in which
there is a storm like that is a dark night, but it is not dark when the
lightning is leaping and flashing.
It is the same with this Black Bird of Paradise. At first when you look
at him, all his plumage is of a deep, dark, velvety black, a lovely
black, a beautiful, smooth, glossy black, a black that seems almost
to gleam and to sparkle as if it were jewellery—black velvet jewellery
you may call it, very handsome, very beautiful indeed. Still it is
black, but all at once all the colours that have lain asleep in it—blues
and greens, and bluey-greens and greeny-blues, and purples and
indigos, and wonderful bronzy reflections—wake up together, and
flash out of it like the sparkles out of the diamond, like the tongues
of fire out of the black cavern, like the lightning out of the dark
night. There they all are, flashing and leaping about, meeting and
mingling, then shooting apart, playing little games with each other,
till all at once they fall asleep again, and there is only the smooth,
glossy black, the deep, jetty black, the shining, gleaming, satiny-
velvety black, the black velvet, black satin jewellery. That is what a
Black Bird of Paradise is like, like a black diamond, like a cavern with
a fire lighted in it, like a dark night with flashes of lightning.
But now I will tell you a little more about his appearance, for this
that I have told you is only just to give you an idea of how that
wonderful material, from which Dame Nature with her scissors cuts
out all her children (for all things that are alive are the children of
Dame Nature), can be black, and yet have all sorts of colours in it at
the same time.
First, you must know—so as not to make any mistake—that this
“Black Bird of Paradise” has another name—indeed he has two other
names, but one of them is in Latin, so we won't bother about that.
There are some birds that have no English names, and when we
come to them we will have to call them by their Latin ones—but as
long as a bird has an English name we will never trouble our heads
about what its Latin name may be, not we, any more than the bird
itself does, and no bird that has an English name ever thinks about
what its name is in Latin—in fact I really do not believe that it
knows. An English name is enough for any bird, if only it is so
fortunate as to have one. Now this bird is so fortunate as to have
two English names—the Black Bird of Paradise, that you know about
—which is what the English people who live in its own country call it
—and the Superb Bird of Paradise, which is what naturalists at home
in England call it. The Superb Bird of Paradise! Just fancy having a
name like that! Supposing a gentleman—some friend of your father
and mother, who calls sometimes at the house—were to be called
the superb Mr. Jones or the superb Mr. Robinson! Only he would
have to be very much more handsome than he is at all likely to be,
before he would deserve a name like that.
Well, the two most wonderful things about the Superb or Black Bird
of Paradise—after his marvellous black plumage, that has all sorts of
colours lying asleep in it—are two wonderful ornaments that he has,
one on his head and one on his breast. The one on his head is the
most wonderful. It is a sort of crest—at least I think that is the best
name for it. Some people, I know, call it a shield, but then that is
what they call the other wonderful thing on the breast too; so, if
they call that a shield, I think they should call this a helmet, for it is
a helmet, and not a shield, that soldiers wear on the head. I shall
call it a crest, but it is one of the most extraordinary crests that any
bird ever had. It is like a pair of black velvet lappets, so long that
they go all down the back and reach half-an-inch beyond the tips of
the wings. But at the back of the head, where this crest begins, the
two lappets meet, and they are joined together for a little way
before they begin to go apart. I tell you what will give you an idea of
the shape of this crest. Have you ever seen a pair of trousers that
have been washed, and are hanging out on a clothes-line to dry,
with the legs very wide apart, so wide they look as if they had been
stretched?—I don't know if they really have. Of course you have
seen such a thing. Well, that will give you an idea—mind, that is all I
can say—of what this wonderful crest that is worn by the Black Bird
of Paradise is like. The legs of the trousers are the two lappets, from
where they are divided from each other, and, farther up, they join
and become all one, just as the legs of a pair of trousers do. Only, of
course, I need hardly tell you that a crest of beautiful, black, velvety
feathers, glossed with bronze and purple, has a far more elegant
appearance than a pair of trousers hanging out to dry, though it may
have just a little the same shape.
KING BIRD OF PARADISE
Now I think you will agree with me that this crest is a wonderful
thing, even when it is only lying down along the neck and body of
the bird. But what would you say when you saw the Black Bird of
Paradise lift it right up above its head?—which is what he does, you
may be sure, when he wants to show off before the hen bird, who
has no crest on her head nor shield on her breast, and whose black
feathers, I am afraid, are not nearly so glossy and velvety, and have
no colours lying asleep in them and ready to wake up all of a
sudden. Ah, you would think the Black Bird of Paradise a wonderful,
wonderful bird if you were to see him bowing politely to his hen and
lifting up his wonderful, wonderful crest to her.
But I told you this bird had a shield too, and when he lifts up his
crest over his head, he shoots out his shield in front of his breast, at
the same time, and this shield is something of the same shape as
the crest or helmet, only smaller, and always of a lovely bluey-green
colour, with a glossy sheen upon it that is just like that upon satin.
Yes, always, for the colours that go to sleep in the other parts of the
Black Bird of Paradise's plumage, keep wide awake in the shield on
its breast, or, if you ever do catch them napping, it is only just for a
single instant, and then out they flash again, wider awake than ever.
So now, if you were to say—as I am sure you would say—that the
Black Bird of Paradise was a wonderful, wonderful bird, even if you
were to see him with only his crest lifted up, what, ah, what would
you say if you were to see him with his crest lifted up and his shield
shot out at the same time? Why, I think that then you could not say
less than that he was a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful bird—three
wonderfuls instead of only two. And indeed you would be right.
Yes, he is a wonder, is the Black Bird of Paradise, though I must tell
you that he has not any of those long, silky feathers that hang down
like cascades and shoot up like fountains, from the sides of those
other Birds of Paradise I have been telling you about. And he has no
long “funny feathers” in his tail either. You see he cannot have
everything, and his crest and shield are instead of those. They are
not quite so beautiful, perhaps, but I think they are still more
wonderful. Even when his crest—his helmet—is laid down and his
shield is not stuck out, the Black Bird of Paradise is a wonder, but
when he raises the one up and shoots the other out, both at the
same time, and says to the hen, “Look at me!” and all the colours
that have been asleep in the helmet, or awake in the shield, gleam
and flash and sparkle together, ah, then he is a wonder of wonders.
Then, do you think he is a bird that ought to be killed and killed and
killed, only to have those beautiful, bronzy-black crests, and satiny-
green, gleaming shields of his set in hats where they soon get dull
and dusty, and where he can never raise them up or shoot them out
or pay proper attention to them—because he is dead, dead, dead? Is
he to be killed and killed till he is gone for ever, and there is not one
more beautiful Black Bird of Paradise in the whole world? Oh no, no,
no; it ought not to be so—it must not, it shall not—because you will
prevent it—yes, you. You will turn to your mother now, this minute,
if she is there, if she is reading this to you, or, if not, you will run to
her—oh, so quickly, so quickly—and ask her, beg her—keep on
asking and asking, begging and begging her to promise—till she has
promised—never, never to buy a hat that has a beautiful Black Bird
of Paradise in it.
Now, as I have said that the Black Bird of Paradise is such a very
wonderful bird—as I have even called him a “wonder of wonders”—
perhaps you will think that there is no other Bird of Paradise quite so
wonderful as he is. Well, I do not wonder at your thinking so; and,
do you know, whilst I was describing him to you and telling you how
wonderful he was, I thought so too. But I had forgotten the Blue
Bird of Paradise.
The Blue Bird of Paradise is quite as wonderful as the Black one.
Perhaps—but mind I only say perhaps—he is even a little more
wonderful. To begin with, blue is a very uncommon colour for a Bird
of Paradise to be of. None of the Birds of Paradise that I have told
you about have feathers that are really blue. There are blue lights, I
know, in some of their feathers, especially on the head, but still they
are not quite blue. You could hardly call them blue feathers, for
there is a green light or a purple light as well as a blue light in them,
which makes them bluey-green or greeny purple, or, at any rate,
green or purple and blue, not just blue by itself. And then, as you
know, sometimes all those lights go to sleep and then the feathers
are black. I do not think there is any Bird of Paradise except the Blue
Bird of Paradise whose feathers are really and truly blue, and I am
quite sure that there is no other one—at least that we know of—
which has so much blue about it, that you would think of it as a blue
bird, or that has blue feather-fountains—those wonderful long silky
plumes that grow out of each side under the wings.
That is what is most wonderful in the Blue Bird of Paradise. There is
no other Bird of Paradise that can sit under a blue fountain or look
out of a blue sunset. But the plumes of the Blue Bird of Paradise are
not so long as those of the Great or the Lesser Bird of Paradise, and
when he spreads them out they go more on each side of him than
up over his head, and, for this reason, I think, he looks more as if he
was looking out of a sunset than sitting under a fountain. You have
seen a beautiful sunset often; there will be blue in it somewhere,
cool, lovely lakes or bays, or long, stretching inlets, of the loveliest,
purest, most delicate blue. But the clouds that float in those bays
and lakes like islands, or that shut them in and make their shores,
like great burning continents, are not blue, but rosy red or fiery
crimson or molten gold or golden-crimson flame. That, at least, is
what the brightest ones are like, those that are gathered nearest
round the sun. Now, if they could keep all their brightness and
glowingness and be blue instead of rose or crimson or gold, then it
would be a blue sunset; and that is what the sunset is like that the
Blue Bird of Paradise looks out of, when he spreads out his plumes,
just as the sunset that the Red Bird of Paradise looks out of, when
he spreads out his plumes, is like a red sunset—only of feathers, of
course. One is a blue feather-sunset, and the other a red feather-
sunset.
And how soft those feathers are, those wonderful, blue sunset-
feathers of the wonderful Blue Bird of Paradise. Oh, I cannot tell you
how softly they droop down over his breast, or how softly—how very
softly—each feather touches the other one, upon it. How softly, I
wonder—for I know you will want me to say. As softly as a
snowflake falls upon snow? Oh, more softly than that. As softly as
two gossamers are blown together in the air? Still more softly, even.
As softly, then, as your mother kisses you when you are asleep, and
she does not wish to wake you? Yes, I think it is as softly, or almost
as softly, as that. Those are two of the very softest kisses—when
your mother kisses you when you are asleep, so as not to wake you,
and when the soft blue feathers of the plumes on each side of a
Blue Bird of Paradise, meet and kiss each other on its breast.
Now that is all I am going to tell you about the front part of the Blue
Bird of Paradise—for those wonderful blue feathers that grow on
each side become the front part of him when he spreads them out.
You see, they open out like two fans, with the handles turned
towards each other, and meet together on the breast and above the
head, so as to make one large fan or screen. Of course there is
something behind this screen, and through it peeps the head of the
bird, which is very pretty too. But you don't look at his head, you
don't seem to see it. All you see or look at are those beautiful,
beautiful plumes, that lovely screen, that wonderful soft blue
feather-sunset.
As for the back part of this wonderful Blue Bird of Paradise, well,
that is blue too, most of it—a handsome blue, a lovely blue, a
gleaming, shining, glossy, satiny blue that looks darker when you
see it from one side, and lighter when you see it from another, and
which gleams and glints and is very resplendent (which is a word
your mother will explain to you) however you look at it. Oh, a
glorious blue, a magnificent blue, but not such a blue as the blue of
those soft lovely feathers that spread out on each side and curl over
and meet and kiss each other so softly, on the breast. And the head
and neck of the Blue Bird of Paradise (for sometimes he puts them
behind the screen, and then they are the back part of him) are of a
soft velvet brown that, as you look at it, becomes a soft velvet-
claret-magenta colour (which your mother knows all about and will
explain to you), and in his tail there are two long “funny feathers”
that hang down from the bough he is sitting on, and—and now you
must try to imagine him. When you have imagined him—or before
you have, if you are not able to—you must make your mother
promise—now what? You know, of course. You must make her
promise never to wear a hat with a Blue Bird of Paradise's feathers
in it.
Now we come to the Golden or Six-shafted Bird of Paradise, who
lives just in one part of New Guinea—that long part at the north that
goes out into the sea, and which we call a peninsula; you have only
to look at the map and you will see it. Now I think of it, the Superb
or Black Bird of Paradise—or shall we say the Superb Black Bird of
Paradise?—lives there too, so I daresay they sometimes see each
other. Perhaps they call on each other, for, you see, they are both of
them distinguished. One is superb and the other golden, and when
two people are like that they do not mind calling upon one another.
You see, neither of them can be hurt by it then. A superb person
may call upon even a golden person, and yet feel quite well after it,
and it will not do a golden person any harm at all to call upon a
superb person. So, if birds are like people, I feel sure that
sometimes the Golden and the Superb Bird of Paradise call upon
each other.
Now you will want to know why this Bird of Paradise is called both
the Golden and the Six-shafted Bird of Paradise. Well, he is called
the Golden Bird of Paradise because he has lovely golden feathers
on his throat and breast, and he is called the Six-shafted Bird of
Paradise because six little arrows—for that is what they look like—
seem to have been shot into his head, three on each side—arrows,
you know, are sometimes called shafts. These little shafts or arrows
are six inches long—almost as long as the bird itself—and bend right
back over his body, as far as to the tail. Of course each of them is
really a feather—an arrow that is all feather—but it is a “funny
feather” with only the quill, which is very thin and slender, till quite
the end, where there is just a little oval piece of the soft web—the
part that looks really like a feather—left upon it. That is what makes
them look like arrows. But is it not curious that the “funny feathers”
of this Bird of Paradise are in his head instead of in his tail? I think it
must be because Dame Nature wanted to make him a little different.
Of course you will see at once that six feathers like that—to say
nothing of his wonderful golden breast—make the Six-shafted (or
Golden) Bird of Paradise quite as remarkable as the Black or the
Blue, or any of the other, Birds of Paradise. Whether it makes him
more remarkable, that I really can't say. You must make up your
mind about that. The fact is, all the Birds of Paradise are remarkable.
I am sure if they were all together in one place, and you were to say
out loud that any one of them was the most remarkable, all the
other ones would be very much offended.
But now, besides his six little shafts or arrows and the beautiful
golden feathers on his throat and breast—they are very large, I must
tell you, those feathers, and sometimes they look green and blue as
well as golden—this Bird of Paradise has two immense tufts of
beautiful, soft, silky feathers on each side of the breast. So large
each tuft is, that when he lifts them both up—as of course he can do
—they almost hide him altogether. Then on the back of his head he
has a band of feathers, so wonderfully bright that they do not seem
to be feathers at all. They look more like jewels—yes, jewels. It is as
if some magician had taken the sheen and shining light out of the
emerald and topaz, and put them on that bird's head, and told them
to stay there. Then on his forehead, just above the beak—as if all
this were not enough—there is a patch, quite a large patch, of pure
white feathers that shine like satin. Really I think you might almost
say that this Bird of Paradise was the most wonderful of all the Birds
of Paradise. But take care, do not say it out loud or you will offend
all the others. Only I forgot, they are not here. Well, then, you may
say it out loud, if you really think so. I do wish I could have got this
bird's picture, but as he would not give it me, you must look at the
picture of the Golden-winged Bird of Paradise instead. He is a very
handsome bird, too—very much brighter than he looks.
 GOLDEN-WINGED BIRD OF PARADISE
Well, this makes the sixth Bird of Paradise which I have been able to
tell you something about—I mean about their appearance, for very
little else is known about them. But, do you know, there are some
forty or fifty different kinds, and, of course, if I were to describe
them all, or anything like all (which, however, I should not be able to
do), this little book would become quite a big book, and there would
be no room in it for any other kinds of beautiful birds. So I won't
describe any more Birds of Paradise, but I will just say something,
before getting on to the other beautiful birds, about Birds of Paradise
and beautiful birds in general. That means about most Birds of
Paradise and most other beautiful birds. When we talk about things
in general, or people in general, we mean most things or most
people. But that must be in another chapter, for this one has been
quite long enough, and so we must end it. Oh, but wait a minute.
Really, I was quite forgetting. First you must get your mother to
promise never to buy a hat in which there are any feathers
belonging to the Golden or Six-shafted Bird of Paradise. Yes, and
never to wear it either, even if she did not buy it, but had it given to
her. Of course your father might give your mother a hat, but if he
were to give her one of that sort, he would have to take it back to
the shop and change it for another.
 CHAPTER VI
About all Birds of Paradise, and
Some Explanations
As I have told you, there are some forty or fifty different kinds of
Birds of Paradise, and they are all of them as beautiful, or nearly as
beautiful, as those that I have described, each one in its own special
way. Of course you must know yourself, or your mother will tell you,
that all this wonderful beauty has not been given to these birds for
nothing, and I have told you that the male Birds of Paradise, who
alone have it, show it off to the poor hen birds, whose plumage is
quite sober in comparison—though you must not think that they are
not pretty birds too—because they are pretty, though in a quieter
style. So they are not really “poor” hen birds, that is only just a way
of speaking. They are happy enough, you may be sure, for they
have their husbands' fine clothes to look at. But what is so
interesting, is that each of these different kinds of Birds of Paradise
has some different way of arranging and showing off his fine clothes
—for, of course, a bird's feathers are his clothes just as much as our
coats and dresses are ours. And, besides that, each one of them
puts himself into some peculiar attitude, which he thinks is the best
one to let his plumage be seen as he would like it to be. We may be
quite sure of this, because it is what all birds do that have beautiful
plumage; and many of them have regular places that they come to,
to run or jump about in, just as soldiers come into a park or
common to march about in it, and show off their nice pretty
uniforms. There will always be a great many hen birds round these
places, to look at the beautiful males, and there are always a great
many ladies round the park or common, to look at the beautiful
soldiers.
Now, would it not be interesting if we knew what all these different
Birds of Paradise did, and how they arranged their plumage, and
what attitudes they went into, and whether they ran or jumped or
flew or did all three, and all the rest of it? If only there was
somebody who knew all that, I think he could write a very
interesting book, and if only some one would go out into those
countries, with a pair of glasses (or even a pair of eyes) instead of
with a gun, and whenever he saw a Bird of Paradise would just look
at it through the glasses (or with his own eyes, if it was near
enough) instead of shooting it, I think he might write an interesting
book. I am sure I should find it interesting, and I think you would
too. Depend upon it, if any one could tell people what a Bird of
Paradise did, he would interest them very much more than by telling
them how he shot it. That is not at all interesting, how he shot it. Do
you think it would be so very interesting for people to know how you
broke a very handsome ornament in your mother's drawing-room?
Why, I don't think it would interest even your mother—much; but
she would be very sorry you broke it. And that is just how I feel (and
I think some other people do too) when a person tells me how he
shot a Bird of Paradise. Things of that kind interest the little demon.
If they interest any one else, I am afraid it is only because of that
little demon, because of his wicked powders and his having sent the
Goddess of Pity to sleep.
But I am sorry to say that there is hardly anybody who knows
anything about all these Birds of Paradise, anything about their
habits and how they live and how they dance and the way they
arrange their wonderful plumage, so as to make it look as beautiful
as possible. Perhaps there are a few people who know just a little—a
very little—about some of the more common kinds, but as for all the
rest, if any one knows anything about them, it must be those black
or yellow people that we call savages, who live in the same countries
that they live in. That is because, when a traveller from Europe goes
out to those countries he always takes a gun—not glasses (or if he
does take a pair of glasses he does not use them, or his eyes either,
in the right way), and when he sees one of these rare Birds of
Paradise, he shoots it, or else frightens it away, as I told you. Then,
when he comes back, he writes his book and tells you how he shot
it, or tried to shoot it, and then he says: “Unfortunately, nothing
whatever is known of the habits of this species.” It is not very
wonderful that he knows nothing of them, is it? And yet this
traveller, with his gun, almost always calls himself a naturalist. Now a
real naturalist is a person who loves nature. But is not that a funny
way to love her—to shoot her children? Depend upon it, that one of
those little bottles that the demon keeps his powders in, is labelled
“Natural History” or “Love of Nature.” You know that his bottles have
generally a false label on them.
So, I am afraid I cannot tell you much about what the Birds of
Paradise do, or how they show off their beautiful feathers. Indeed, it
is very much the same with most other beautiful birds, and for the
very same reason that I have been telling you, because people will
shoot, instead of looking and watching. Just the little that we know
about the Great Bird of Paradise, how he has a special tree that he
comes to, to have those dances that the natives call “Sácalelis,” and
how he flies about with his plumes waving, or sits underneath them
as if he were in the spray of a falling fountain, that I have told you;
but, besides this, I can only tell you just a very little about a Bird of
Paradise that I have not said anything about, because, you know,
there are so many of them. The little I can tell you is this. Two
gentlemen—one of them a Mr. Chalmers and the other a Mr. Wyatt—
were once travelling in the part of New Guinea where this Bird of
Paradise lives, and one morning, when they were up early, they saw
four of the cock birds and two of the hens, in a tree close by them.
This is what one of these gentlemen says about them (if there is any
word too long for you, or that you don't understand, you must ask
your mother to explain it):—
“The two hens were sitting quietly on a branch, and the four cocks,
dressed in their very best, their ruffs of green and yellow standing
out, giving them a handsome appearance about the head and neck”
(yes, I feel sure of that), “their long flowing plumes so arranged that
every feather seemed combed out, and the long wires” (he means
the “funny feathers”) “stretched well out behind, were dancing in a
circle round them.” (Just fancy!) “It was an interesting sight.” (I
should think so!) “First one and then another would advance a little
nearer to a hen, and she, coquette-like” (you will have to ask your
mother what that means), “would retire a little, pretending not to
care for any advances. A shot was fired, contrary to our expressed
wish, there was a strange commotion, and two of the cocks flew
away” (you see what shooting does), “but the others and the hens
remained. Soon the two returned, and again the dance began, and
continued long. As we had strictly forbidden any more shooting, all
fear was gone; and so, after a rest, the males came a little nearer to
the dark brown hens. Quarrelling ensued, and in the end all six birds
flew away.”
Fancy seeing all that! I think it is wonderful that any of the birds
stayed after the shot had been fired, and if another one had been,
no doubt they would all have gone. Those travellers, you see, were a
little better than most travellers are. They did not kill the birds
(perhaps they were not naturalists), and the consequence is they
have had something interesting to tell us about them. Still, I think if
I had been there I should have had a little more to say, and instead
of just saying that the cock birds were dancing, I should have
described how they were dancing, and what sort of attitudes they
put themselves into. And I think I would have waited at that place,
and gone to those trees again very early next morning, all by myself,
to see if those birds came back to dance there. Still, what these
travellers do tell us is very interesting, very much more interesting
than if they had only written, “Here we shot,” or “Here we obtained
another specimen of Paradisea Something-elsea”—which, of course,
would be the Latin name. Naturalists like to tell us the Latin name of
the animals they shoot. If they only had an English name I don't
think they would care nearly so much to shoot them. How sorry we
ought to be that animals have Latin names!
But, now, how is it that it is only the cock bird—the male—of all
these Birds of Paradise who is so beautiful, whilst the poor hen—the
female bird—is quite plain, in comparison? Well, I must tell you, first,
that this is not only the case with Birds of Paradise, but that it is just
the same with other birds as well. In most, if not all, of the beautiful
birds I am going to tell you about, it is the male bird that is so very
beautiful, so that perhaps you will begin to think that this is the case
with all beautiful birds, and that there is no hen bird that has very
splendid or brilliant plumage. But this is not so at all. You would
make a great mistake if you were to think that. In most of the
parrots—those brightly-coloured birds that you know so well—the
male and female are alike, and if you were to see a kingfisher—the
star-bird that I told you about in the first chapter—gleaming and
glancing up a river, you would not know whether it was the one or
the other. The feathers of the female scarlet flamingo are almost—if
not quite—as scarlet as those of the male; the cock robin's breast is
not more red than the breast of the hen robin, at least you would
find it difficult to tell the difference; male and female pigeons—and
some of them are very splendid—are as bright as each other, and so
it is with a very great number of other birds.
Now does not this seem funny, that some male birds should be so
much handsomer than their wives, whilst some hen birds should be
just as handsome as their husbands? Is there any way of explaining
this, or, rather, do we know how to explain it? for there is a way of
explaining everything—a right way, I mean, of course. The difficult
thing is to find it out. Well, there are some clever people who have
been thinking about this funny thing, and they try to explain it in this
way.
Of course, when the male Birds of Paradise (and it is the same with
other birds) show off their fine plumage to the hen birds, it is
because they want to marry them, which is just the same as with
people; for, you know, when a gentleman wishes to marry a lady he
dresses as nicely as he can, and sometimes he goes into attitudes as
well. Now, the hen Birds of Paradise—so these clever people say—
always choose for their husbands the birds that have the finest
feathers, and the other ones, whose feathers are not so fine, have to
look about for another wife. Of course, after the Birds of Paradise
have married, they make a nest, and very soon there are eggs in it,
and then the eggs are chipped and little Birds of Paradise come out
of them. Some of these little Birds of Paradise will be males and
some females, and the male ones will grow up with feathers like the
cock birds, and the females with feathers like the hen—just as with
us, the boys sometimes grow up like the father, and the girls
sometimes grow up like the mother—only with Birds of Paradise it is
always so. But now, amongst these young Birds of Paradise, though
all will be beautiful, some will be more beautiful than the others,
more beautiful even than their father, perhaps, and you may be sure
that those will be the ones who will find it most easy to marry, and
who will have the greater number of children. Some of those
children will be more beautiful than their fathers, and then they will
marry and have children that are still more beautiful than
themselves, and so it will always be going on. The young male Birds
of Paradise will always have feathers like their fathers, and gradually
they will get more and more beautiful, because their wives will
always choose them for their beauty. But the young female Birds of
Paradise will always be like their mothers, and will not become more
beautiful than they are, because hen Birds of Paradise are not
chosen for their beauty, but only for their good qualities.
Now, if this is true, it shows how sensible the Birds of Paradise must
be, for all sensible persons would choose their wives for their good
qualities, and not just for their beauty. The worst of it is that there
are so many persons who are not quite sensible. Still, even with us,
there are a good many wives who must, I think, have been chosen,
like the hen Birds of Paradise, for their good qualities—which, of
course, is what they ought to be chosen for.
That is how some people explain why the male Birds of Paradise,
and other beautiful male birds, are so much more beautiful than the
females. They say that they have gradually got more and more
beautiful, whilst the hens have remained plain, and that once upon a
time there was not so very much difference between them. And if
you ask them why the males and females of other birds are both as
beautiful as each other, they will tell you that the children of those
birds were always like the father, so that, as the father birds became
beautiful—for they were chosen in the same way—all the little
daughter birds became beautiful too, as well as the little sons.
But I am afraid the people who explain it all in this way must have
forgotten how the Birds of Paradise, at any rate, used once to live in
Paradise, where, of course, they were all as beautiful as each other,
and though their plumage got spoilt when they came out of it
(beautiful though it seems to us) in the way I told you, yet it does
seem funny that the hens should have had it spoilt so much more
than the cock birds. But you know it was spoilt by the glory which
streamed out of the gates of Paradise, and which was so bright and
burning that it burnt off all the most beautiful parts of it, and
scorched and singed the rest. Now, of course, the nearer any bird
was to the gate of Paradise when it opened, the worse he would
have got scorched, and so if the cocks flew faster than the hens—
and I am sure they did—they would have got soonest away, and the
hens would have suffered most. That explanation seems much more
simple; but, you see, these clever people do not believe about the
Birds of Paradise having once lived in Paradise. They have their own
explanation of it all (which I have just told you), and they like to
believe in that. Then which of the two are you to believe in? Well, I
think the simpler one—which is prettier as well—would be the best
for you to believe in now, but later on—when you are a clever
person—you can try the other. Now, you know, you are only a little
child, and something that is simple and pretty is the right thing for a
little child. But a clever person wants a different kind of explanation
to that. He wants a clever one, and as soon as you feel that you
have become a clever person, there will be a clever explanation all
ready for you.
But now, whilst you are still a little child, I can give you another
explanation of why the males and females of some birds are as
beautiful as each other, whilst the males of some other ones are
ever so much the most beautiful. This other explanation will do in
case the one about the cock Birds of Paradise flying faster than the
hens is not the right one, for, of course, we cannot be quite sure
that they flew faster. I did say I was sure, but that was just a little