Clifton College Scientific Society. 35 



MEETING, July 1, 1870. 

 The Peesident in the Chau\ 



The Rev. J. Greene, in the absence of the Secretary, read 

 the minutes of the last Meeting. 



The present Meeting was rendered especially worthy of 

 note from the fact that Professor Church, of Cirencester, 

 read to the Meeting a most interesting and valuable paper 

 (illustrated by experiments) on ' Turacin,' an animal pigment 

 containing Copper. He very kindly placed this paper at the 

 disposal of the Committee, by whom the following extracts 

 have been made: — 



' Origin of the jnesent Enquiry. — The stability of the 

 colours which the feathers of birds display has been re- 

 peatedly proved. These colours are due either to what we 

 may call the oj^tical character of the surfaces of the web, or 

 to the presence in it of definite colouring matters. These 

 pigments may be opaque like enamel, or translucent and 

 permeating the substance of the barbs ; they have been as 

 yet but very imperfectly studied. In a few instances only 

 have they been actually separated fi'om the structures con- 

 taining them, while in no case have they been completely 

 examined from a chemical point of view. So far as I can 

 learn, we have no exact information as to the amount and 

 the deportment, chemical constitutions and re- actions, of 

 those substances, which M. Bogdanow,^ some twelve years 

 ago, succeeded in extracting from the feathers of many 

 birds, and notably from the red feathers of Galurus aiiriceps 

 and Catinga ccerulea. Before giving an outline of my own 

 experiments in this direction, I will mention the particular 

 circumstances which led to the prosecution of the present 

 research. 



'A few years ago, Mr. W. B. Tegetmeier pointed out to 

 me a singular pruperty of the red feathers of the bird called 

 Touracou, or Plantain-eater. These feathers yield up a 

 part of their colouring matter to pure water, a beautiful rose- 

 coloured solution being thus obtained. Mr. Tegetmeier's 

 attention had been drawn to this fact, and he at once per- 

 ceived that it was worthy of fuller investigation than it had 



' Comp. Rend., xlv., p. 688 ; xlvi. p. 780. 

 D 2 



