WAYS OF TINAMOU 255 



methods of research, in part dehberately planned a priori, 

 in part seeming hke luck. 



There are eight species of tinamou in British Guiana, 

 three of which are found in the vicinity of Bartica. These 

 are divided into two genera, Tinamus and Crypturus. Ety- 

 mologically, there is neither logic nor reason in these names as 

 terms of differentiation; both groups are tinamou and both 

 deserve the name of "hidden-tail." These genera are recog- 

 nized throughout the world, and whenever any specimens of 

 these particular birds are received in museums they are at 

 once classified as one or the other. The actual character of 

 differentiation is the scaly part of the leg or tarsus. In Tina- 

 mus, the rear part of the leg is exceedingly rough, the edges 

 of the scales projecting and forming a series of rugged cor- 

 rugations. In Crypturus, the hinder aspect of the tarsus is 

 quite smooth. These two distinctions have been recognized 

 for many years — Tinamus for more than one hundred and 

 thirty, and Crypturus for a hundred and six years, and dur- 

 ing all this time ornithologists have accepted this character 

 without thought or question. The needs of taxonomy having 

 been satisfied, there was no danger of confusion even if a 

 pile of skins of the two groups were thoroughly mixed up. 

 So the birds have been labelled and catalogued and put away 

 in their respective cases and the incident — the casual, nom- 

 inal affair between Hermann and Illiger versus Tinamus 

 and Crypturus — was considered closed. 



But this is unworthy of the very name of science and or- 

 nithology. It is as if we should meet a person with an infi- 

 nite capacity for life-long friendship and should wilfully 

 turn away after merely hearing his name. 



Soon after the first tinamou sprang up from under my 

 feet in the jungle, or when Nupee, the Indian hunter, 

 brought me the first of the many whose flesh were to form 

 so excellent a part of our food, the old, old question forced 

 itself upon me, the question from which I can never hope 

 nor desire, to escape; the question which makes all science 



