[F. cotinga; originally native name in S. America.] A South American bird, or family of passerine birds, of brilliant plumage.
Originally applied to the Sky-blue Chatterer (Ampelis cotinga of Linnæus); this (under the name Cotinga cærulea) was subsequently made the type of a genus, the cotingas, which has since been taken as the type of a family Cotingidæ, cognate to the Ampelidæ or Chatterers.
1783. Latham, Synopsis Birds, II. I. 94.
1793. Smellie, trans. Buffon’s Nat. Hist. (1812), XV. 33. Few birds have such beautiful plumage as the Cotingas.
1840. Cuvier’s Anim. Kingd., 182. The Cotingas have the beak compressed, as in the generality of flycatchers.
Hence Cotingine a., pertaining or related to the cotinga.
