years.

This may afford a clue to the perplexity which has harassed some Ornithologists respecting their numerous species, and the varieties "caused by domestication," according to their theory. This is a fashionable and an easy way of solving a difficulty; but it ought first to be proved, that the Cracidæ are, even in their native country, really domesticated at all.

Mr. Swainson, instead of finding such plenty of Curassows, tells us that, through all the tracts of Brazil and its different provinces which he traversed, solely with a view of collecting its zoological productions, he was not fortunate enough to procure a single specimen of the Crax alector, although he sometimes heard of its being occasionally seen by the remote planters located on the verge of the unoccupied tracts. As to this, or any other species, being kept in the poultry-yards of the native Brazilians, he never saw a single reclaimed specimen through a tract of territory which he traversed, extending some hundreds of miles. In Guiana, he adds, these birds have long become so scarce, that in a collection of many hundreds made in that country by Mr. Schomberg, there are not three specimens of the whole genus.

Mr. Darwin, during his voyage with the Beagle, saw nothing of Curassows in South America, except a very few wild ones in the damp islands at the mouth of the Parana. Similar localities are given by Mr. Swainson, from personal observation, as their favourite haunts, namely, thickly-wooded marshes, and the vicinity of water. It is odd that Holland should be the only European country in which they are said to have really thriven.

Temminck, who alone is quoted, often at second-hand,

CHAP. I.]

M. AMESHOFF'S FEAST.

243

for the record of this success, certainly does observe that in captivity Curassows are quite as familiar and confiding as Turkeys, Pea-fowl, and Guinea-fowl, and attributes their infecundity in that state to the want of their having received special attention and peculiar treatment; but unfortunately he does not tell us what those soins particuliers have been, or ought to be. He instances the success attained in M. Ameshoff's menagerie, but gives no details; and he makes us doubt whether the success was really so very great, by calling the dinner at which Curassows were served, ce festin digne des temps d'Heliogabale, and informing us that on the same occasion exotic Pheasants, Chinese Mandarin Teal, and Louisiana Ducks, were produced at table, in order to display the magnificence of the menagerie. In short, it was a mere feast of bravado and a vain piece of ostentation, in which could now more any rich man easily indulge than M. Ameshoff, without having bred his dainty fowl in such plentiful abundance. The circumstance, too, occurred in Temminck's early childhood, and he speaks from hearsay and distant memory, not from mature observation.

We have now laid before the reader, fairly, we hope, some of the pros and cons of the claims of the Curassow family upon the patronage of the British poulterer or amateur breeder. We shall next give some details respecting one species, with which we have had a personal trial and experience. It will be for others to sum up the evidence in the end, and decide what encouragement there is for further attempts; but we cannot help entertaining a strong prejudice that the Cracidæ are, like the Parrot tribe, very tameable and docile as individuals; but that, in consequence of their refusal to

breed (except so rarely that the exception confirms the rule) in confinement, the race never has been and never can be truly domesticated. For, without taking into consideration any unsuitability of climate, it is retained alive in our public and private menageries almost entirely by successive importations from South America; and if the stock could not be renewed from that source, but depended upon its propagation here for a continued existence, it would soon altogether become extinct and unseen in Great Britain.

The eggs of the Cracidæ seem to be large in proportion to the size of the bird, and whitish or light creamcoloured, with a slightly granulated surface. I am indebted to the Earl of Derby for the loan of eggs of the Crax globicera and Yarrellii. The former measures 9 inches round its long circumference, and 84 inches round the middle, being a very short oval: the latter is 7 inches round lengthwise, and 6 round the middle.

The Chick figured at the head of this chapter is a Curassow, species not certain.

Difficulty of discriminating the species.-State in which the young are hatched. -Easily tamed.-Produce few young in a tame state.-Mode of distinguishing species.-Organ of voice.-Its efficiency.-The Cracidæ as poultry.-Mr. Bennett's and Mr. Martin's hopes.-Causes of failure.-Have had a fair trial.Curassow dinner.-Cracidæ in Holland.-Temminck's expectations; plausible but unfounded.-Determine on an experiment.-Unsuitability of South American organisms to Great Britain.-Instances.-Few exceptions.-The reversed seasons of the north and south hemispheres one cause.-Mr. Darwin's account.Guans at the Surrey Gardens.-Their native habits and diet.-Our own mishaps. -Troublesome tameness of the birds.-Tricks and dangers.-Impudence and capriciousness.-Possible profitableness !-Narrative of a coadjutor.-His illsuccess. Our own.-Habits of the Eye-browed Guan.-Amount of success at Knowsley.

THE genus of birds now under consideration, which is composed of not a few species, and doubtless of more

than are at present recorded and distinguished, is usually known by the term Guan*; this, however, is the specific name of the Penelope cristata in Temminck's admirable account of the bodily forms of the tribe, and it would be better and more conducive to precision, to retain Penelope as the generic term. We should consequently decide to adopt it as such in the present chapter, did not the length of the word, as well as the previous currency of the shorter term, render it somewhat inconvenient for familiar use. But anything is better than confusion of ideas. The various species of Penelope have been the despair and plague of scientific naturalists and skin-merchants, in consequence of the puzzling similarities and gradations in their external appearance. Some writers, adopting an idea which they have inherited from their predecessors, get out of the difficulty, by saying that these slight varieties in plumage and outward form are only the usual and necessary consequences of domestication, whereas, although the birds are most easily tamed, we cannot find any proof of a score of individuals having been reared in domesticity, either in South America or in Great Britain. The circumstance that some species at least are hatched in a less developed state than other gallinaceous chicks, and remain nestlings as long as ten or twelve dayst, ap

"The Quam is as big as an ordinary Hen Turkey, of a blackish dun colour; its bill like a Turkey's; it flies about among the Woods; feeds on Berries, and is very good meat."-Mr. Dampier's Voyages to the Bay of Campeachy, An. 1676, Vol. ii., Part 2., p. 66.

"Ces oiseaux construisent leur nid au milieu des arbres bien touffus, et le plus près du tronc qu'ils peuvent, de sorte qu'on a bien de la peine à les découvrir. Lorsque les œufs sont éclos, la mère nourrit les petits dans le nid, jusqu'à ce qu'ils soient un peu grands, et que leurs plumes commencent à sortir; alors, âgés seulement de douze à quinze jours, ils descendent à terre avec leur mère, qui les