NOTES ON NATURAL HISTORY. 203 



habits and histories of the animal and vegetable creation. I have very 

 frequently been sadly disappointed, when reading books of authority on 

 Natural History, at finding such very extraordinary blunders made, as to 

 the most ordinary characteristics of animals; and having possessed your very 

 valuable little magazine, "The Naturalist," from its commencement, and 

 derived much amusement and instruction from it, I determined to write 

 you on this subject, and to offer my poor assistance in arriving at the 

 true history of birds and animals, with whose habits, appearances, and 

 dispositions I am most intimate. 



I was led to write to-day more particularly, by meeting in a work on 

 Natural History, with an account of a bird not generally much known, 

 but with whose habits I am very intimate, as it inhabits the savannahs 

 and banks of a creek, (small river,) which runs for a long way parallel 

 with the coast on which I live, and is not found anywhere else, so far 

 as I know, in the colony, though found in numbers on the prairies on 

 the banks of the Orinoco. This bird is the American Horned Screamer; 

 the Palamedea curnuta; and called by the colonists the "Mahooka," from 

 its cry, which much resembles this in sound. 



This bird I find described as "very like the Spurwing," — black in colour, 

 with a red tuft on the shoulder. Now one would suppose that there 

 must be truth in this, or whence the description? In reality the only 

 likeness to the Spurwing is in both having two sharp spurs on each wing, 

 inside the shoulder. But in every other respect the birds are widely 

 different. The Mahooka is in size about that of a domestic turkey, or 

 perhaps a little less; black the prevailing colour, with the belly and inside 

 portions of the wings pure white. The outside of the shoulders of full- 

 grown males a clear fawn-colour, marked with brown ; the neck prettily 

 marked with minute white spots. The head smalt in proportion to the 

 size of the bird — very like a peacock's; the beak small and slightly curved. 

 From the forehead projects a horny spike four or five inches in length, 

 like the centre part (rib) of a feather deprived of its flags, quite hard and 

 tough. Having shot birds with this horn in different stages of growth, 

 and one without anything but a germ, I am led to believe that they 

 periodically cast this horn, or perhaps in case of losing it, that they have 

 the power of reproduction. 



The great peculiarity of the bird consists in having on the inside of 

 each shoulder, a strong spur or horny substance an inch and a quarter 

 in length, and very sharp. This spur is triangular in shape, and within 

 one inch and a half of it there is a second spur of about half that size. 



It is evident that this weapon, or rather that these weapons, arc intended 

 for offence, and I myself have observed such use made of them among the 

 birds themselves; but though I have killed very many, and taken many 



