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There is a large nursery attached to La Gabrielle, where plants of all the different species are raised and distributed gratis to those colonists who wish to cultivate them. Not far from the banks of the river Oyapoc, to windward of Cayenne, is a mountain which contains an immense cavern. Here the cock-of-the-rock is plentiful.
It becomes nearly black by being exposed to the air, and is real india-rubber without undergoing any other process. The elegant crested bird called cock-of-the-rock, admirably described by Buffon, is a native of the woody mountains of Macoushia.
However, I find now that no exact period can be fixed; for in December 1824 an Indian in the River Demerara gave me a young cock-of-the-rock not a month old, and it had just been brought from the Macoushi country. By having a young specimen at this time of the year it puts it out of one's power to say at what precise time the old birds are in full plumage.
The other, Basilornis celebensis, is a blue-black bird with a white patch on each side of the breast, and the head ornamented with a beautiful compressed scaly crest of feathers, resembling in form that of the well-known Cock-of-the-rock of South America. The only ally to this bird is found in Ceram, and has the feathers of the crest elongated upwards into quite a different form.
Now, as I have said in a former chapter, these are wise little birds, more interesting I had almost said more beautiful in their wisdom, or wisdom-simulating instincts, than the quatzel in its resplendent green, or the cock-of-the-rock in its vivid scarlet and orange mantle.
There is a large nursery attached to La Gabrielle where plants of all the different species are raised and distributed gratis to those colonists who wish to cultivate them. Not far from the banks of the River Oyapoc, to windward of Cayenne, is a mountain which contains an immense cavern. Here the cock-of-the-rock is plentiful.
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