It is its unearthly cry that makes this bird an object of superstition to the natives of the whole of Angola. It is said by them to be a “feiticeiro,” or sorcerer, and that it warns travellers of danger by frightening with its cry animals or robbers lying in wait for them. If one of these birds should perch on a hut or on a tree within the enclosure of a town and sing, it is thought such a bad omen that the inhabitants vacate it and remove to another place. When the natives bring them in cages from the interior for sale on the coast, they never take them into the towns on the road for fear they should sing whilst in them, and at night the carrier, for the same reason, sleeps with his birds at some little distance from any town.
One most singular circumstance connected with this bird is the fact that the gorgeous blood-red colour of its wing-feathers is soluble, especially in weak solution of ammonia, and that this soluble colouring matter contains a considerable quantity of copper, to which its colour may very probably be due. My attention was first called to this extremely curious and unexpected fact by Professor Church’s paper in the ‘Phil. Trans.’ for 1869; and, on my last voyage home from the Coast, I purchased a large bunch of the red wing-feathers in the market at Sierra Leone, with which my brother-in-law, Mr. Henry Bassett, F.C.S., has verified Professor Church’s results conclusively, and has found even a larger proportion of copper in the colouring matter extracted from these feathers.
The ammoniacal solution is of a magnificent ruby-red colour by transmitted light. Mr. Bassett obtained the following as the result of his investigation:—
“From 300 feathers obtained 1·045 grm. turacin. Two copper determinations, made by fusing with nitre and carbonate of soda, washing out with water, then dissolving the oxide of copper in nitric acid, filtering, and precipitating with potash, gave quantities of oxide of copper corresponding to 7·6 and 8·0 per cent. of metallic copper. Church found 6·0 per cent.; on the other hand, the feathers yielded him a larger quantity of the colouring matter. General characters, appearance, &c., exactly in accordance with Church’s description; insoluble in benzol, sulphide carbon, tetrachloride carbon. The copper to be unmistakably seen by burning the smallest portion of a feather in a Bunsen burner.”
It is difficult to say whether this copper is derived from the metal contained in the food of these birds, or whether they pick up, with sand and gravel, the attractive looking particles of malachite so universally distributed over Angola. Their habits would seem to favour somewhat this view, as they are extremely inquisitive in their wild state, running along the large branches of the trees in an excited and fussy manner, with outstretched neck and expanded wings, and peering down on any intruder with every expression of interest and curiosity.
At the same time, two birds that I have had in confinement in England, both for five or six years, moulted regularly every year, and reproduced the splendidly coloured feathers, of the same brightness, without the possibility of getting any copper except what might have entered into the composition of their food, which was most varied, consisting of every ripe fruit in season, cooked vegetables and roots, rice, bread, biscuits, dried fruits, &c.
In Angola many of the “plantain-eaters” to be obtained from the natives will only eat bananas, and refuse all other food, so that they cannot be brought to Europe; others, however, readily adapt themselves to almost every kind of soft food.
My first bird was a Corythaix Livingstonii, and was beautifully tame and gentle; it was most amusing in its habits, and in the notice it took of everything around it;—a change of dress, or even new or differently coloured ribbons to what it had been in the habit of seeing, excited its attention greatly, and it would utter a loud cry and open out its lovely wings in astonishment, and coming close to the cage bars examine it with the greatest curiosity. It was very fond of having a picture-book shown it, noticing especially those pictures that were most vividly coloured. It was very fond of a bath, which it used to come out and take in a large pie-dish full of water placed on the table. At night it roosted in a little, flat basket, in which it would not readily nestle till one of my sisters sang to it for a few minutes, when it would utter a satisfied kind of low, rumbling noise, and at once squat down quietly to sleep.
My last live specimen, a Corythaix Paulina was also very tame, and has only recently died from the breaking of an egg inside its body. A former egg that it laid is now in the collection of the British Museum. It had only just moulted before it died, and the skin is in beautiful plumage.
It is pleasing to record an instance of a bird being considered of good omen; this is one called “Quioco” by the natives, which has a beautifully clear and loud song, and this is believed to be a sign of good luck when heard near their huts. Its scientific name is Telephonus erythropterus.