Alicanto

Alicanto are odd night-flying birds that live only in some temperate forests and jungles. They eat precious metal: some feed on silver and some on gold, and the color of a bird's plumage shows which. Harmless and skittish, they fly off at the least disturbance. They are clumsy fliers that often blunder into trees and other obstacles, and they seldom get more than 20-30 feet off the ground. The feathers hold barely a trace of metal, yet their glitter makes them costly ornaments (a gold piece for silver plumes, up to ten for gold), and an adult carries several dozen. Long hunted for them, the birds may be dying out.

They forage along stream banks for scraps of ore, and near settlements they peck through mines, irrigation ditches and newly plowed fields. They also eat coins, rings and necklaces, and valuables in packs make them bold enough to raid campsites or perch on a horse to rummage in its saddlebags.

An alicanto will gorge until it cannot fly: 10-20 pounds of metal grounds an adult, and more than 20 is nearly always fatal. People try this trick to take them alive as treasure-finders, since each can sense its own metal (never both) up to 100 feet away. Most captives die of grief within one to three days; the rest become mischievous and costly pets that need a coin or two a day. They mate once a year, and the female buries a single silver or gold egg beside a river or stream. The tale of geese laying such eggs is only a fable.