The most conspicuous birds are the red-tipped plantain-eaters, or touracos, which 

 represent a peculiar African family distantly related to the cuckoos. Six of these 

 gorgeous birds are gathered about the fruits on the branch of a wild fig. One of them, 

 in the immediate foreground, is shown in flight, displaying its gorgeous carmine wing 

 feathers. The characteristic red that generally is to be found in the wings of touracos 

 results from the presence of an organic pigment, turacin, that contains 7 per cent 

 copper. It can be dissohed in slightly alkaline water; when a slight amount of am- 

 monia is added to water in which these feathers are washed, the red disappears. This 

 curious kind of coloration is found only in this family of birds and has given rise to 

 many incorrect statements about the touracos. The rain, and bathing, doesn't wash 

 out the red color of the birds; if the color is lost, it cannot be regained. 



Besides the plantain-eaters, a green forest fruit pigeon, and a flycatcher — all char- 

 acteristic forms of the lowland rain forest — the group shows six mountain forest birds: a 

 thrush, a sunbird, a babbler, an oriole-finch, a woodpecker, and a shrike. But you 

 must look closely to see them. In rain forests, birds may be hard to see. 



From the point of view of the study of distribution Mount Cameroon is particularly 

 interesting. The mountain rises in the corner of the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa, 

 quite isolated, though in line with mountains on the nearby islands of Fernando Po and 

 other highlands in the Cameroons. These mountains and highlands are inhabited by a 

 whole series of birds that are quite difTerent from those of the lowland rain forest and 

 are most closely related to those of the mountains in East Africa more than a thousand 

 miles away. Thus these mountains are classified as part of the East and South African 

 Subregion, the Humid Montane Province, despite the fact that they lie in West Africa. 

 Long ago they were proijabh' connected with the East African mountains, but the 

 connection has since disappeared. 



:6i] 



