“The males raise up and open and close their tails exactly in the manner of a turkey, and filling out the bright cockscomb-red, bladder-like wattle on their necks, and with wings dropping on the ground, make quite a grand appearance.
“They do not present a less extraordinary appearance as they walk slowly with an awkward gait, and peer from side to side with their great eyes in quest of food in the short grass, poking their large bills at any frog, snake, &c., that may come in their way.
“Their flight is feeble, and not long-sustained. When alarmed, they generally fly up to the nearest large tree, preferring such as have thick branches with but little foliage, as the Adansonia “Mucuzo” (a wild fig). Here they squat close on the branches, and, if further alarmed, raise themselves quite upright on their legs in an attitude of listening, with wide-open bills. The first to notice a person at once utters its customary cry, and all fly off to the next tree.
“They are very wary. The grass near the mountains being comparatively short, and with but little scrub or bush, it is very difficult to approach them without being observed from the high trees. I followed a flock of six for upwards of two hours, crawling flat on my stomach, negro fashion, before I obtained a chance of a shot, when I was so fortunate as to break the wing of a male without otherwise injuring it. It was quickly captured by the blacks.
“They are omnivorous in their food: reptiles, birds, eggs, beetles, and all other insects, mandioca-roots, ginguba or ground-nuts, constitute their food in the wild state. In confinement I have fed this bird upon the same food, also upon fresh fish, which it showed itself very fond of, as well as on the entrails of fowls, &c. On letting it loose in Loanda, in a yard where there were several fowls with chickens, it immediately gulped down its throat six of the latter, and finished its breakfast with several eggs!
“The note or cry of the male is like the hoarse blast of a horn, repeated short three times, and answered by the female in a lower note. It is very loud, and can be heard at a considerable distance, particularly at night.
“They are said to build their nests on the very highest adansonias, in the hollow or cavity formed at the base or junction of the branches with the trunk.”
Another bird (the Scopus umbretta) is singular from the curious story of its habits, as described by the natives, but unfortunately I had not an opportunity of investigating their statements to ascertain the exact foundation for them.
All the more intelligent blacks in Cambambe gave me exactly the same description, and I leave it for future collectors to verify the statement. It is a small heron-like bird of a very uniform chestnut-brown colour, and is found near pools and marshes. It is affirmed by the natives that it never builds its own nest, but that other birds, of different species, make one for it; and also, that if a person bathes in the pool in which this bird is in the habit of washing and pluming itself, he becomes quickly affected with a cutaneous eruption similar to the itch.
The lovely “plantain-eaters,” principally the Corythaix Paulina, are very abundant all over Angola where thick forests are found. They are common in the country about Pungo Andongo, and also near the River Quanza. They have a very loud, hoarse cry, quite unlike that which a bird might be imagined to produce, which has a very singular and startling effect when heard in a forest.