BIRDS IN AUTHORITY 47 



I have also heard of cases of birds of other species 

 taking on themselves the leadership and guardianship 

 of their fellows. One from South America relates 

 to the trumpeter, the strange and delightful Psophia 

 leucoptera, a quaint, beautiful creature, a little ostrich 

 in shape, taller than a fowl, very dark, with white 

 wings, the head and neck glossed with purple and 

 green. A singular bird, too, in its voice and manner, 

 when three or four get together and have a sort of 

 drum and trumpet performance, keeping time to the 

 music with measured steps and bowings and various 

 quaint gestures and motions. Alas ! they are delicate 

 birds, and all the beautiful trumpeters we had some 

 time ago in the Zoological Gardens are now dead — 

 to come to life again, let us hope, in their distant 

 home in some Brazilian forest. 



About twenty years ago an American naturalist, 

 one Dr. Rusby, was in a part of Bolivia where it was 

 common to keep a pet trumpeter, and he says that 

 the Spanish settlers almost worshipped them on 

 account of their amiable and affectionate domestic 

 habits. Early in the morning the trumpeter would 

 go into a sleeper's room and salute him on rising by 

 dancing about the floor, bowing its head and drop- 

 ping its wings and tail, continuing the performance 

 until its presence was noticed and it was spoken to, 

 whereupon it would depart to visit another bed- 

 room, to repeat the ceremony there, then to another, 

 until the whole household had been visited and bid 

 "Good-morning." Afterwards, when all were up, 

 it would attach itself to some one member of the 



