190 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



nor paraffine. Normal sodium carbonate becomes bicarbon- 

 ate. Iodine dissolves sparingly, giving a purple solution. 

 Liquid fats are slightly dissolved. Water dissolves only 

 traces of the liquefied oxide, but it is more soluble in carbon 

 disulj^hide and in petroleum naphtha. Ether dissolves it 

 freely. Sodium does not appear to exert any reducing efiect 

 upon it, though a film forms on its surface. Its coefticient of 

 compressibility could not be determined. 6 B^ LXXV., 1271. 



COPPER IN TUKACINE. 



Mr. J. J. Monteiro has lately obtained a large number of 

 feathers of the Touraco (3Iicsophaga), and placed them in the 

 hands of an English chemist for investigation, who reports 

 that, from three hundred feathers, he obtained 1.045 grammes 

 of turacine, which yielded between seven and eight per cent, 

 of metallic copper. The touracos, according to Monteiro, are 

 common on the coast of Africa, from five to fifteen degrees 

 south latitude ; and over the whole country, for a considera- 

 ble distance inland, copper is found in the form of malachite, 

 or green carbonate of copper ; the green specks of this ma- 

 terial being noticed almost every wliere. Mr. Monteiro is not 

 certain whether copper occurs to the same extent on the west 

 coast of Sierra Leone, Senegal, etc., where the birds are also 

 abundant; but there is no doubt tliat throughout the whole 

 region of the west coast, which he has visited, and where the 

 birds are plenty, copper is also disseminated very extensively. 



Professor Church has suggested that copper may enter into 

 the system as an article of their food ; but, at any rate, Mr. 

 Monteiro thinks it probable that the birds are attracted by 

 the bright green of the malachite, and that they swallow 

 small particles of it with the gravel which, in common with 

 all birds, they consume with their food. 



We have already referred to the occurrence of copper in 

 the green feathers of the little Australian love parrot, and 

 to the alleged fact that it is found almost exclusively in a 

 copper-producing region. It will be an interesting problem 

 now to determine whether Australian parrots and the tou- 

 racos are entirely confined to copper-producing countries, and 

 whether the green plumage of parrots, and of birds general- 

 ly, is at all connected with their co-existence in the region of 

 copper-bearing rocks. 1 A, October 17, 201. 



