TUBINARES 993 



taller bird. The head and neck are clothed with short velvety- 

 feathers ; the whole plumage is black, except that on the lower 

 front of tfhe neck the feathers are tipped with golden green, chang- 

 ing according to the light into violet, and that a patch of dull 

 rusty-brown extends across the middle of the back and wing- 

 coverts, passing into ash-colour lower down, where they hang over 

 and conceal the tail. The legs are bright pea-green. The habits 

 of this bird are very wonderful, and it is much to be wished that 

 fuller accounts of them had appeared. The curious sound it utters, 

 noticed by the earliest observers, has been already mentioned, and 

 by them also was its singularly social disposition towards man 

 described ; but the information supplied to Buffon {Ois. iv. pp. 

 496-501) by Manoncour and De la Borde, which has been repeated 

 in many works, is still the best we have of the curious way in 

 which it becomes semi-domesticated by the Indians and colonists 

 and shews strong affection for its owners as well as for their living 

 property — poultry or sheep — though in this reclaimed condition 

 it seems never to breed.^ Indeed nothing can be positively 

 asserted as to its mode of nidification ; but its eggs, according to 

 Mr. E. Bartlett, are of a creamy-white, rather round and about 

 the size of Bantams'. Water ton in his Wanderings (Second 

 Journey, chap, iii.) speaks of falling in with flocks of 200 or 300 

 " "Waracabas," as he called them, in Demerara, but added nothing 

 to our knowledge of the species ; while the contributions of Trail 

 {Mem. J'Fern. Soc. v. pp. 523-532) and Dr. Hancock (Mag. Nat. 

 Hist. ser. 2, ii. pp. 490-492) as regards its habits only touch upon 

 them in captivity. 



To the Trumpeters must undoubtedly be accorded the rank of 

 a distinct Family, Psophiidse; but like so many other South- 

 American birds they seem to be the less specialized descendants of 

 an ancient generalized group — perhaps the common ancestors of 

 the Rallidse and Gruidm — and they therefore rightly come into Prof. 

 Huxley's Geranomorph^. The structure of the syrinx is stated 

 by Trail {nt supra) to be unique ; but Mr. Beddard says that no 

 trenchant characters distinguish it from many Bails and Cranes, 

 nor has he found any such modification of the trachea as is 

 described by Trail (ut suprct) to exist in some but not all males 

 {Proc. Zool. Soc. 1890, pp. 329-341). 



TUBINAEES, Illiger's name in 1811 (Frodr. p. 273) for the 

 group containing the Albatroses and Petrels, for a long while 



^ In connexion herewith may be mentioned the singular storj', received by- 

 Montagu {Orn. Did. Suppl. Art. "Grosbeak, White--winged "), from the then 

 Lord Stanley, of one of these birds, which, having apparently escaped from con- 

 finement, formed the habit of attending a poultry-yard. On the occasion of a 

 pack of hounds running through the yard, the Trumpeter joined and kept up 

 with them for nearly three miles ! 



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