FAMILY EURYPYGIDAE 369 



In handling them in the flesh, it has been interesting to note the 

 great development of the caudal muscles, in addition to the robust 

 size of those that control the legs. This heavy form in the posterior 

 part of the rather flat body may be noticed in outline when they fly. 



In some published accounts this species is called the sungrebe. 



Family EURYPYGIDAE: Sunbitterns ; Abanicos 



These are birds of the American Tropics found locally in forested 

 areas from Tabasco and Chiapas in southern Mexico through Central 

 America and South America to eastern Bolivia and central Brazil. 

 The birds of the north have stronger, heavier bills, and are more 

 subdued in color on the upper surface, with the black bars narrower, 

 less in width than the gray interspaces. While described originally as 

 a distinct species under the name major these are now placed as 

 conspecific with the form helias of the southern part of the range. 

 In southern Peru birds of this type have the black bars on the rump 

 and upper tail coverts slightly narrower and are recognized as another 

 race, meridionalis. The typical subspecies helias, found from the 

 Orinoco Valley southward, is quite distinct in more slender bill and 

 in a mixture of buff on the back, where the black bars are wider. 



EURYPYGA HELIAS MAJOR Hartlaub: Sunbittern; Abanico 



Figure 62 



Eurypyga major Hartlaub, Syst. Verz. Naturh. Samml. Gesellsch. Mus. Bremen, 

 pt. 1, Vogel, 1844, p. 108. (Colombia.) 



Slender in form, with long neck and legs, white throat and abdomen, 

 brown breast and neck; a striking pattern of chestnut, black, and 

 white in the spread wing. 



Description. — Length 460 to 475 mm. Adult (sexes alike), head 

 black, with a slender line of white over the eye, and another across 

 the cheeks ; neck dull chestnut, barred narrowly with black ; upper 

 back like neck but black bars wider ; rest of back and tertials brownish 

 gray, barred heavily with black ; scapulars spotted with white ; rump, 

 upper tail coverts, and base of tail dull black, barred narrowly with 

 white ; a band of chestnut bordered with black across center of tail, 

 and another near tip; center and tip of tail gray, banded narrowly 

 with white and pale grayish white ; primaries barred widely with chest- 

 nut, black, and white; center of secondaries mottled with buff; throat, 

 lower breast, and abdomen white ; upper breast dark buff to cinnamon- 

 buff, barred narrowly with black ; sides, flanks, and under tail coverts 

 buff, the latter marked finely and irregularly with black. 



