826 



SERIEMA 



SERIEMA, otherwise Cariama,^ a South-American bird, suffi- 

 ciently well described and figured in Marcgrave's work (Hist. Her. 

 Nat. Brasilia, p. 203), posthumously published by De Laet in 1648, 

 to be recognized by succeeding ornithologists, among whom Brisson 

 in 1760 acknowledged it as 



forming a distinct genus Cariaina, 



Seriema, 



while Linneeus regarded it as a second species of Palamedea 

 (Screamer, p. 819), under the name of P. cristata, Englished 

 in 1785 by Latham (Gen. 'Synops. v. p. 20) the "Crested 

 Screamer," — an appellation, as already observed, since transferred 

 to a wholly difterent bird. Nothing more seems to have been 

 known of it in Europe till 1803, when Azara published at Madrid 

 his observations on the birds of Paraguay (Apuntamientos, No. 340), 

 Avherein he gave an account of it under the name of " Saria," which 

 it bore among the Guaranis, — that of " Cariama " being ap})lied to 

 it by the Portuguese settlers, and both expressive of its ordinary 

 cry.-' It was not, however, until 1809 that this very remarkable 



^ lu this word the initial C, as is usual in Portuguese, is pronounced soft, 

 and the accent laid upon tlie last syllable. 



2 Yet Forbes states {Ibis, 1881, p. 358) that Seriema comes from Siri, "a. 

 diminutive of Indian extraction," and Uma, the Portuguese name for the Rhea 

 ((/. Emeu, p. 212, note 1), the whole thus meaning "Little Rhea." 



