NOTES ON HOATZINS 171 



reached the Canje bridge, a few miles below, they must have 

 been carried out to sea. 



We must assume either that this was a voluntary migra- 

 tion, which would be retraversed by many a slow, painful, 

 flapping flight, or that the birds were young, newly mated 

 and actually shifting their haunts from far up stream to 

 nearer the mouth. The latter view is much the more prob- 

 able and would go far toward clearing up the problem of the 

 distribution of these birds. Schomburgk, in the second vol- 

 ume of his Reisen in Britisch Guiana, writes that "Die west- 

 liche Kette des Canuku-Gebige endet sich in den 2,000 Fuss 

 hohen Curatawuiburi," and near here he found an isolated 

 colony of hoatzins. Wilgress Anderson reports another on 

 the Takutu River, a northern tributary of the Amazon, be- 

 tween British Guiana and Brazil, while H. C. P. Melville, 

 Magistrate of the Rupununni District, writes that while 

 hoatzins are plentiful on the Takutu, they are not found on 

 the Rupununni, although conditions on both rivers are very 

 similar. In the lower reaches of the Abary River, twenty- 

 five miles northwest of the Berbice, hoatzins are abundant, 

 and elsewhere in Venezuela, Brazil and other portions of the 

 birds' range I have observed this peculiar nodal occurrence. 

 The most reasonable explanation would seem to be a migra- 

 tion of one or more pairs in some such way as I have de- 

 scribed, which would readily account for the hiatus of inter- 

 vening territory, devoid of hoatzins while environmentally 

 it may be perfectly suited to their needs. 



Judging by the reports of other observers and from the 

 opinion of Edgar Beckett who has lived for many years in 

 New Amsterdam, the hoatzins are holding their own and are 

 not decreasing either on the Berbice River or along the banks 

 of Canje Creek. The birds are on the First Protected List 

 which means that they are not allowed to be shot at any time, 

 and in addition there is a special fine of five pounds sterling 

 for killing one of them. 



