BIRDS IN AUTHORITY 47 



bird in Norway from a sportsman and enthusiastic wild- 

 fowler, one of the class who do not like to think too 

 much about the psychology of the creatures it is their 

 pleasure to follow and destroy. 



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 Icn- 

 coptcra, 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 beau- 

 tiful 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 com- 

 mon 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 dropping its w-ings and tail, con- 

 tinuing the performance until its presence was noticed 

 and it was spoken to, whereupon it would depart to visit 

 another bedroom, to repeat the ceremony there, then to 



