THE CROWN BIRD, 



Description. 



CHAP. III. 



tv These, far dispersed, on tim'rous pinions fly 

 To sport and flutter in a kinder sky." 



GOLDSMITH. 



THE CROWN BIRD. 



THERE being several of the feathered tribes 

 in different parts of the world with whose figures 

 or manners, naturalists confess themselves almost 

 unacquainted, we shall devote this chapter to a 

 few particulars of them. 



The crown-bird (with which we shall first be- 

 gin) is a fine stately East India fowl, about the 

 size of an English turkey ; the body is covered with 

 long slender feathers resembling hair, of a dark 

 green colour, with a purplish cast on the sides 

 and back, with a few broad stripes of red upon the 

 wings, tending downwards; the thighs are a sort 

 of buff colour, the claws black. It has a large 

 bluish, or gold-coloured tuft on the top of the 

 head, which grows up in shafts or stalks, with little 

 balls upon the tops, that bear a trifling resem- 



