196 



GALLIFORMES 



readily domesticated, but rarely breed in confinement. Hybrids 

 with domestic fowls have been recorded. Except where men- 

 tioned below the sexes are alike. 



Sub-fam. 1. Cracinae. — Crax alector is black with a purplish 

 gloss, the belly being white, the naked lores and orbits black, the 

 cere and base of the bill yellow, the tip bluish, and the feet horn- 

 coloured. Throughout the whole genus, which is Central and South 

 American, the female has a curly crest barred w^ith white. The re- 

 maiiiing nine species differ in being greenish-black, and — except 

 C. fasciolata — have a frontal knob, with or without a basal wattle 



Fig. 45. — Crested Curassow. Crax alector. 



on each side of the mandible, the colour of these parts varying from 

 scarlet or yellow to pale blue or purplish-black. The tail may be 

 tipped with white ; the females often exhibit white barring above, 

 and have the plumage relieved by buff and chestnut. Notli ocrax 

 ^irumutum, ranging from British Guiana to the Upper Amazons, 

 is chiefly chestnut above vermiculated with black, and cinnamon 

 below ; the wings and tail being blackish with buff markings, the 

 throat chestnut, the long crest black, the naked lores and orbits 

 yellow and purplish, the bill scarlet, the feet flesh-coloured. The 

 female has the lower parts mottled with dusky. Mitua viitu of 

 British Guiana, Brazil, Peru, and Bolivia is blue-black, with chestnut 



