GUILLEMOT ^c^-j 



it is high, -v^dth its culmen depressed, the crown feathered, and the 

 nostrils bare — the last two characters separating the Penelopinai 

 from the Oreophasinse, which form the third subfamily of the 

 Cracidx,^ a Family belonging to that taxonomer's division Feristero- 

 podes ^ of the group Alectoromorpile. 



The Penelopinse have been separated into seven genera, of which 

 Penelope and Ortalis (erroneously Ortalida), containing respectively 

 about sixteen and nineteen species, are the largest, the others 

 numbering from one to three only. Into their minute difierences 

 it would be useless to enter ; nearly all have the throat bare of 

 feathers, and from that of many of them hangs a wattle ; but one 

 form, Chamxpetes, has neither of these features, and Stegnolsema, 

 though wattled, has the throat clothed. With few exceptions the 

 Guans are confined to the South American continent ; one species 

 of Penelope is, however, found in Mexico and at Mazatlan, Pipile 

 cumanensis inhabits Trinidad as well as the mainland, while three 

 species of Ortalis occur in Mexico or Texas, and one, which is also 

 common to Venezuela, in Tobago. Like Curassows, Guans are in 

 great measure of arboreal habit. They also readily become tame, 

 but all attempts to domesticate them in the full sense of the word 

 have wholly failed, and the cases in which they have even been 

 induced to breed and the young have been reared in confinement 

 are very few.^ Yet it would seem that Guans and Curassows will 

 interbreed with poultry (Ibis, 1866, p. 24; Bull. Soc. Imp. d'Acclim- 

 atation, 1868, p. 559; 1869, p. 357), and there is the more 

 extraordinary statement that in Texas the hybrids between the 

 Chiacalacca, Ortalis vetida, and the domestic Fowl are asserted to be 

 far superior to ordinary Game-cocks for fighting piurposes. More 

 information on this subject is very desirable. 



GUILLEMOT (French, Gkdllemot^), the name accepted by 



^ See the Synopsis, extensively laid under contribution for this article, by 

 Messrs. Sclater and Salvin [Proc. Zool. Soc. 1870, pp. 504-544), while further 

 information on the Cracinas has since been given by the former of those gentle- 

 men {I'rans. Zool. Soc. ix. pp. 273-288, pis. xl.-liii. ) Some additions have since 

 been made to the knowledge of the Family, but none of very gi'cat importance. 



- It would be here out of place to dwell upon the important bearings on the 

 question of Geographical Distfjbutiox (p. 313) which the establishment of this 

 division has tended to shew. For this reference must be made to Prof. Huxley's 

 original paper [ut supra), or to the epitome of it given in the Zoological Record 

 (v. pp. 34 and 99). 



3 Cf. E. S. Dixon {The Dovecote and the Aviary, pp. 223-273. London : 1851), 

 who argues that the reported success of the Dutch towards the end of the last 

 century in domesticating these birds was an exaggeration or altogether a mistake. 

 His tAvo chapters are well worth reading. 



■* The word, however, seeu^s to be cognate with or derived from the Welsh 

 and Manx Gxdllem, or Givilym as Pennant spells it. The association may have 

 no real meaning, but one cannot help comparing the resemblance between the 



