cherrie; : ornithology oi^ the Orinoco region. 355 



CRACIDAEi— CURASSOWS, GUANS, CHACHALACAS. 

 MiTUA tomentosa (Spix). 

 Crax tomentosa Spix, Av. Bras. II. 1825. p. 49, PI. 43. 



Mitua tomentosa Berlepsch & Hartert, p. 120. 



Native name Panji cnlo Colorado. Common along the middle 

 stretches of the river and up as far as the falls of Atures, but replaced 

 on the upper river by Crax alector. 



Eye bay brown ; bill pale horn color at tip, bright vinaceous basally 

 on mandible and at centre of maxilla where the color deepens and 

 darkens rapidly up to the base ; ridge of culmen blackish ; feet orange 

 rufous. 



The Paujis are much esteemed as game birds throughout Vene- 

 zuela — or perhaps I should say as table birds, for some of the qualities 

 esteemed by the sportsman in the game bird are lacking. It is a bird 

 of the thick forest regions, especially of localities where there is a 

 dense undergrowth, and when pursued seeks safety by running, rather 

 than by flight. 



A nest, containing two eggs with incubation far advanced, was 

 found at Las Gaucas on the San Feliz River (a tributary of the 

 Cuchivero River), June 2, 1897. The nest was about two metres 

 from the ground, against the stem of a Corobo palm at a point where 

 several of the great leaf-stems had been partially broken down and 

 formed a sort of hollowed platform into which leaves from adjoining- 

 trees had either fallen, or been carried, and then lined with thu 

 narrow green leaflets from the palm itself. 



The eggs, which are normally a lusterless, parchment-like white, 

 are much stained (with brown varying in shade, from wood brown 

 to cinnamon) from the wet, decaying leaves on which they lay. They 

 are ovate in form and measure 84 x 59 and 84 x 59 mm. The entire 

 egg is thickly covered with small rounded granules, producing an 

 almost sandpaper-like surface. 



This set of eggs was collected on the 2nd of June. They were 

 immediately packed and jolted about on the back of a pack-mule for 

 a distance of about seventy-five miles, yet on the 8th of July two young 

 curassows emerged from these eggs and seemed little the worse for 



'In addition to the species observed by the writer and recorded by Berlepsch & Hartert. the following 

 have also been recorded from the Orinoco Region: 



Pauxi pauxi (Linnaeus) , is recorded from the river Cassiqucari and from the Orinoco by Pelzeln, 

 Orn. Bras. (1870). p. 289. 



Or/alis ruficauda Jard. is recorded from the Rio Apure and the Rio Orinoco by Berlepsch, Ibis, 

 1884 p. 440. 



