SOME OF THE OUTLIERS AMONG BIRDS. 



77^ 



thought this bird to be a jacana (Fig. 8), in which he was entirely 

 wrong, as the jacanas are now known to stand as a family the 

 JacantcZcR connecting the rails with the snipe-plover group {Li- 

 micolce), with the closer affinity with the latter. Young chakas 

 are frequently reared by the natives from the nest and employed 

 as guards in the poultry yards, a task performed by them with 

 marked success, armed as they are with the spurs upon their wings. 

 They in Nature build a light nest of rushes, often in the water in 

 the shallowest parts of the lagoons where they resort, and in this 

 they lay some half a dozen buffy-white eggs. Nestling chakas are 



Fig. 8. The Sceeamee (Palamedea cornuta)^ with a Jacana in the neae Background. 



Drawn by the author. 



covered with a clay-colored down, which is probably also true of 

 the young of P. cornuia. These birds that is, the crested scream- 

 ers are given at times to rising to great heights in the air, where 

 they soar in circles, ever and anon uttering their piercing cries of 

 " chaka ! " " chaka ! " " chaka ! " and when a number of them are 

 thus engaged it offers a sight not likely to be forgotten by the 

 observer.* 



Passing on next to the parrots,f we find them to be a wonder- 



* A darker-plumaged bird of this genus is also found in Central America ( C. derbiana), 

 which, in common with the others, has the same peculiar emphysematous condition of the 

 skin. Grouped as a family, they are known as the Pal amedcidce of some and the Anhimidoe 

 of others (Sharpe), and this family should be still further distinguished from other groups 

 of birds by placing it apart in another of its own with at least suljordinal rank. 



\ Psiitaci. 



