i)o>rr.sTtc' Fowr >. 427 



M. Sonnini thus expresses himself on the subject : " Travelling- in the sombre and 

 solitary forests of Guiana, when the dawn first began to shed a loss lugubrious tint, 

 in the midst of those immense trees which never fall but beneath the axe of time, I have 

 frequently heard a cry perfect^ resembling the note of our domestic cock, but less 

 powerfid and sonorous. The considerable distance from . all inhabited places could not 

 peiniit us to believe that this crowing, which the companions of my journey heard A'erj' 

 distinctty, was produced by domestic birds, and the Indians by whom we wore followed 

 told us that it was the cry of wild cocks. In one of these journeys, I myself beheld on a 

 mountain a bird about the size of a pigeon, with brown plumage, bearing on its head a 

 fleshy crest, having the wings short, and the tail arranged exactly like that of the hen, 

 whose port and gait it altogether exhibited. I was able to examine it very well, and it 

 did not appear very wild or shy ; the negro who had carried my fusee had stopped at 

 some distance, and when he rejoined me the bird was flown into the depth of the forest, 

 and we searched for it to no purpose. 



" This fact, the crowing of the cocks which we heard in the woods, and the knowledge 

 of the wild cocks possessed by the natives, left no doubt on my mind respecting the 

 existence of these cocks in South America ; and I have now put forth what I had the 

 opportunity of ascertaining, without any other pretensions than to make known a mere 

 fact in the natural history of the GaUinn'." 



