190 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM Vol.87 



my first encounter with this interesting form in Ufe. They were in 

 pairs or little groups of half a dozen, and though many seemed to be 

 completing a molt I believed that they were about to breed. The 

 birds were tame, and though they moved heavily, flew easily from 

 the top of one low tree to another, being far less sedentary then I had 

 supposed from what I had read of their habits. I selected one in fair 

 plumage and shot it, and sldnning my specimen for ease in carrying, I 

 found it to be a male. A native boy who saw it called it the roble. The 

 large crop with its muscular walls resembled an external stomach. 

 The breast and wing muscles were red and well suppUed with blood, 

 indicating definite use, being quite different in appearance from the 

 paler flesh of ground-haunting gallinaceous birds. In spite of the 

 name "stinking pheasant" that has been given to this bird I detected 

 no particular odor in the flesh, no more so, in fact, than in that of 

 hawks that I have skinned in the field in the same way. The odor of 

 an ani to me is far more disagreeable. 



On the following day I found several more hoatzins in low, dense 

 trees bordering sloughs on the opposite side of the Klo Guarico. 



While the hoatzin is known to be common along the Rio Orinoco 

 and its larger branches, it was unexpected to find it so far from these 

 main channels. Apparently its range is more extensive than has 

 been supposed. 



Family RALLIDAE 



ARAMIDES CAJANEA CAJANEA (MuUer) 



Fulica Cajanea P. L. S. Muller, Natursystem, Suppl., 1776, p. 119 (Cayenne). 



In the cacao plantations back of Ocumare de la Costa I had an 

 occasional glimpse of a wood rail but did not obtain a specimen until 

 I reached El Sombrero. In the evening the curious calls of these birds 

 came regularly from low woods along the Rio Guarico, and on No- 

 vember 19 1 came across a httle group of half a dozen in a wet thicket 

 below the town. They ran instantly away and disappeared. The 

 following day, when iu heavy forest near the bank of the river several 

 began to call near me, their notes seeming more musical than my 

 remembrance of those of the larger Aramides ypecaha found farther 

 south. Slipping behind the cover of a large tree I finally saw one 

 wadiag in shallow water beneath some bushes and secured it, finding 

 it to be a male. 



GALUNULA CHLOROPUS PAUXILLA Banga 



Gallinula chloropus patixilla Bangs, Proc. New England Zool. Club, vol. 6, May 17, 

 1915, p. 96 (Guabinas, Rfo Cauca, western Colombia). 



The supposition of Outram Bangs in his original description that 

 this race, distinguished from G. c. galeata by decidedly smaller size, 



