158 A NATURALIST IN THE GUI AN AS 



put a stop to their duel. The same Indian told me that 

 another but very much rarer Pauji inhabits the forest on 

 the Caura, but as it is nocturnal in its habits, and retires 

 during the day to some deep hole which it has burrowed 

 in the ground, it is but rarely seen. No serious attempts 

 appear to have been made to domesticate any of the 

 curassows, although they take very easily to captivity 

 and become quite tame. I have not heard of any case of 

 their having been induced to breed in a state of domesticity. 

 It is a great pity that persistent and intelligent efforts 

 have not been carried on in this direction, as the addition 

 of these handsome and valuable birds to the other regular 

 denizens of the poultry yard would be most desirable. 



Of the smaller birds frequenting the gloomy depths of 

 the forest the most gorgeously coloured are the callistes, 

 the trogons, the jacamars, and that rare bird the king- 

 tody.^ The bright scarlet or yellow breasts of the trogons 

 appear to have been specially designed for attracting the 

 flies and other insects on which these birds subsist. What 

 is more likely than that an insect in search of food should 

 mistake the patch of red adorning the collared trogon for 

 the crimson flower of the rose of the forest, as the natives 

 call the Broionea ? And the brilliant crest of the king- 

 tody may it not be a useful appendage rather than an 

 article of dress? Trogons may be easily observed in 

 tropical American forests, for they are far from being un- 

 common, but it is otherwise with the king-tody, which is, so 

 far as my experience goes, an exceedingly rare bird. On 

 two occasions I had the good fortune to see this beau- 

 tiful fly-catcher in the haunts he affects. In both in- 

 stances I met with him in the same surroundings though 

 in localities a thousand miles apart. Shaded ravines 

 ' Muscivora coronata. 



