214 Allen's naturalist's library. 



I. THE razor-billed curassow. mitua mitu. 



Crax mitu., Linn. S. N. i. p. 270 (1766). 



Fauxi miiu^ Temm. Pig. et Gall. iii. pp. 8, 685 (1S15). 



Ourax 7infu, Cuv. Regne An. i. p. 441 (1817) ; Temm. PI. Coi. 



V. pi. 20 [no. 153] (1823). 

 Crax tuberosa, Spix, Av. Bras. ii. p. 51, pi. Ixvii. a (1825), 

 Ourax erythrorhy7tcIius, Swains. Class. B. ii. p. 352 (1837). 

 Mitua brasilie?isls, Reichenb. Tauben, p. 137 (1862). 

 Mitua tuberosa, Sclater, Trans. Z. S. ix. p. 283, pi. Ii. (1875). 

 Mitua mitu, Ogilvie-Grant, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxii. p. 486 

 (1893). 



Adult Male and Pemale. — General colour black, glossed with 

 blue ; belly and under tail-coverts dark chestnut ; tail tipped 

 with white. Crest well developed ; upper mandible swollen 

 and elevated. 



Male: Total length, 34 inches ; wing, 14-5 ; tail, 12 ; tarsus, 

 4'4 ; middle toe and claw, -^'^^ 



Female : Somewhat smaller. 



Range. — British Guiana, extending eastwards to Para, south 

 along the Rio Tapajos and Rio Madeira to Matto Grosso, also 

 to Bolivia, westwards to Peru, the Rio Maranon, and the Upper 

 Amazons. 



Mr. H. W. Bates, who met with numbers of this species on 

 the Rio Tapajos, writes : — "We were amused at the excessive 

 and almost absurd tameness of a fine Mutum or Curassow 

 Turkey that ran about the house. It was a large glossy-black 

 species, having an orange-coloured beak, surmounted by a 

 bean-shaped excrescence of the same hue. It seemed to con- 

 sider itself as one of the family, attended at all the meals, 

 passing from one person to another round the mat to be fed, 

 and rubbing the sides of its head in a coaxing way against 

 their cheeks or shoulders. At night it went to roost on a 

 chest in a sleeping-room beside the hammock of one of the 

 little girls, to whom it seemed particulary attached, following 



