IMPROVING NATURE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 5, Issue 1444, 31 July 1883, Page 2

IMPROVING NATURE.

The artistic merit desplayed by \ Dame Nature in the colouring of para- Y keets has lately been inquired into with •>'' much care by certain chemists learned in the science of pigments; and tho ' result seems'to show, that a very great deal of effect is capable of being produced by this master hand out of the simplest materials. The investigations in question have resulted in a: conclusion arrived at by the said savants that only one colouring element or essence is employed in giving to the feathero of these birds their brilliant hues. This is the matter called psittacofulvine ' which has a natural green body colour, but in transparency looks red and black. It is, however, possible to modify artificially the tint of thiq substance, and thereby of the feathers it affects. Two curious instances are mentioned in which this process is said to be applied with, success. Tfte first . is practised; by. .the natives qI .South America, who, in order to, produce yellow tail feathers .in the birds sold by them, begin by pulling 'put those feathers which are of a less lmraly prized colour, ar.d then moculate"4e yellow milky secetijm taken skin of; a 'peculiar kind 'of- frog. The nJw 5 •

feathers then grow with a bright yellow tint produced by the mixture of the inoculated liquid with the psittacofulvine naturally belonging to them, The other process is adopted by the Indians living on the banks of the Amazon: These ingenious savages, who also particularly appreciate the ttsthetio and commercial value of the golden-tinted feathers, subject their parakets during the moult to a particular diet, They feed them upon the flosh of a largo fish of tin; silurnid kind which abounds in that river, mid thus give the growing feathers a yellow colour. It is obvious that the principles thus, established might be extended to various other purposes; and in time it may be possible by various devices, gastronomic and otherwise to produce plumage which will eclipse the best offorts of the Whitechapel bird painters,