NOTKS ON HOATZIXS 171 



reached the Can je bi-idgc, a few miles below, they must have 

 been carried out to sea. 



We must assume either tiiat this was a voluntary migra- 

 tion, which would be retravcrscd bv manv a slow, ])ainful. 

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

 and actually shitting their haunts from far up stream to 

 nearer the moutli. 'Die lattei- view is much the more prob- 

 able and would go far toward clearing u]) tlic problem of the 

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

 ume of his Uciscii in Jirifiscli Guiana, WTites that "Die west- 

 liche Kette des Canuku-Cicbige 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 Kiver, a northern tributary of the Amazon, be- 

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

 INIagistrate of the Bupununni 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 Kiver, 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 M'ould 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 Kiver 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 anv time, 

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

 for killing one of them. 



