250 Cabofs Observations on 



flowed during the rainy season ; and is it not possible, that in 

 order to guard herself against surprise, while sitting, and in a 

 measure to protect her eggs, and young, from the attacks of 

 ravenous animals, and also to secure them from the flooding 

 caused by the rain, she may, in some places, and under some 

 circumstances, have resorted to this way of placing her nest, 

 instead of the usual manner ? The eggs, I have been told by 

 the Indians and others, are marked like those of the common 

 turkey, but I have never seen them myself. 



The male bird is about three feet six inches in length from 

 the tip of the bill to the tip of the tail. Bill formed as in the com- 

 mon turkey. Head and neck, to two and a half or three inches 

 below head, bare, except a few scattered hairs and a row of 

 feathers which surround the external orifice of the ear. This 

 bare skin is of a rich stone blue, except immediately around 

 the eyes, where it is red. At the base of the bill there is an 

 erectile appendage of one and a quarter inches long, stone blue 

 except the apex which is of a bright orange. From each side 

 of this part, two rows of round knobs, of a bright orange, run- 

 ning backward over the superciliary ridges as far as the back 

 part of the red circle which surrounds the eye ; there is one 

 very small similar knob, at about three lines in front of each 

 external ear. At about a line behind the principal appendage, 

 at the base of the bill, is another of about three and a half 

 lines in height, and two and a half lines through at the base, 

 of a stone blue color, having seven or eight of the above men- 

 tioned orange knobs on different parts of it, principally on the 

 summit ; immediately behind, and in fact joining on to this 

 appendage is another, of about one line in height, and having 

 three of the orange knobs on the top of it. Behind each angle 

 of the lower jaw is a row of three small red knobs, and at the 

 lower part of the bare skin on the under side are seven or 

 eight more small red knobs. Feathers of neck and upper 

 parts of back and breast in scollops of rich crow-color mar- 

 gined near the tip with black, and tipped with golden green. 

 Feathers of lower parts of back, rich varying green, margined 

 near the tip with black, and tipped with rich golden bronze. 



