XII 
THE COLOURS OF BIRDS 
253 
{ Green feathers contain zoofulvin and melanin. 
Red ,, ,, “araroth.” 
Blue ,, ,, melanin. 
fRed ,, ,, “araroth.” 
Female Yellow ,, ,, zoofulvin and “araroth.” 
(Blue ,, ,, melanin. 
It would appear from this that the melanin 
pigments are more abundant in the male, and the 
lipochrome in the female and the young. The case 
is a very interesting one, but it is doubtful how far 
it is safe to build conclusion upon it. 
Besides the lipochrome and melanin pigments in 
birds, there are a few other isolated colouring-matters 
of some importance. Of these the best known is 
turacin, with which the name of Professor A. H. 
Church is so closely associated. Turacin is a 
reddish-purple pigment occurring in patches on 
some of the primary and secondary wing-quills of 
various of the Musophagida;, or plantain-eaters, such 
as the type genus and Corythaix. The pigment is 
soluble in water, is said to be in part washed out of 
the feathers by heavy rain, and also to colour the 
water in which specimens kept in confinement are in 
the habit of bathing. It is present in exceedingly 
small quantities in the species in which it occurs, 
and is absent from some of the genera of the family. 
According to Church, it is absent in the species of 
Schizorrhis , in which the parts of the feathers which 
are in other genera coloured by turacin are here 
marked by white patches destitute of pigment. The 
great interest of the pigment is that it contains 
copper and not iron, but presents many interesting 
analogies to haemoglobin. There is, however, no 
evidence that it can exist in both the oxidised and 
