BIRDS OF NORTH AND MIDDLE AMERICA 13 



CRAX RUBRA RUBRA Linnaeus 



Central American Curassow 



Adult male. — Entire feathering of head, neck, wings, tail, and body 

 black with a ver)^ dark greenish gloss, except for the middle and posterior 

 part of the abdomen, the flanks, and the under tail coverts, which are 

 white; in some cases the rectrices are slightly margined with white; the 

 feathers of the lower back and rump are short and often reveal their 

 dark brownish bases, causing this area to appear somewhat mixed black 

 and dull sepia, iris red; cere with swollen wattle pale yellow to bright 

 yellow, tip of bill somewhat duskier ; tarsi and toes grayish "horn color." 



Adtdt female. — Extremely variable, the plumages falling into at least 

 three phases, which, as far as present data indicate, are all equally adult : 



1. Dark phase: Feathers of head and neck and upper two-thirds of 

 throat blackish broadly crossed subterminally with white, causing a barred 

 or sometimes a scalloped appearance, the white areas much smaller on 

 the sides of the head than on the chin, throat, and sides and back of 

 the neck, making the lores, circumorbital area, cheeks, and auriculars 

 definitely blacker in appearance; crest feathers black with a broad v/hite 

 band and sometimes a narrow basal one ; posterior part of neck, lower 

 throat, upper breast, scapulars, and interscapulars dark slate black with 

 a slight greenish gloss, the scapulars and interscapulars more or less 

 washed or edged with dark warm sepia to mars brown ; back and rump 

 rich dark chestnut-brown somewhat mottled or tinged with blackish ; 

 upper wing coverts bright chestnut with a slight suffusion of orange- 

 rufous, the feathers with dusky shafts and irregularly mottled with dusky 

 fuscous to blackish; primaries and outer secondaries bright chestnut 

 mottled with black and with the shaft edged with blackish on the inner 

 web ; in some specimens the outer webs unmottled, in others both webs 

 are heavily sprinkled with black markings; inner secondaries generally 

 darker, much more heavily mottled with blackish, and with narrow 

 whitish transverse irregular marks on the outer webs ; in some specimens 

 the inner secondaries are more blackish than chestnut and blend easily 



and Rio Brancho, n. Brazil) ; Sclater and Salvin, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1870, 

 514 (monogr.) ; Sclater, Trans. Zool. Soc. London, ix, 1875, 277, pi. 43 (monogr.) ; 

 Brown, Canoe and Camp Life in Brit. Guiana, 1'876, 345 ; Ogilvie-Grant, Cat. Birds 

 Brit. Mus., xxii, 1893, 475 (int. Colombia; San Gabriel, upper Rio Negro; Barra 

 do Rio Negro; Camacusa and Demerara, Brit. Guiana; Surinam); Chapman, Bull. 

 Am.er. Mus. Nat. Hist, xxxvi, 1917, 194 (Buena Vista, e. Colombia). — C[rax] 

 alector Cabanis, in Schomburgk, Reis. Brit. Guiana, iii, 1848, 746; Reichenbach, 

 Voll. Nat. Tauben, 1861, 130. — Crax globiccra (not of Linnaeus) Teraminck, Cat. 

 Syst., 1807, 151 (Surinam). — Crax mitu (not of Linnaeus) Vieillot, Nouv. Diet. 

 Hist. Nat., xiv, 1817, 583; Gal. Ois., ii, 1825, pi. 199.— Cra.r erythrognatha Sclater 

 and Salvin, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1877, 22 (interior of Colombia; coll. Salvin 

 and Godman, now in coll. Brit. ?^Ius.) ; Sclater, Trans. Zool. Soc. London., x, 

 1879, 543, pi. 90. 



