4°4 



TROPICAL AMERICA AND ITS ANIMALS 



with regard to the affinities of the serieraas, tall greyish-brown birds, which fly seldom, 

 but run with great speed. They roost and nest on trees, and lay eggs resembling 

 those of birds-of-prey ; while they make their presence known by their loud voices. 

 The Brazilian seriema (Cariama cristata) of Brazil and Paraguay, is a light brown 

 bird marked with narrow dark undulating lines, and is about the size of a heron, 

 and is the sole representative of its genus. It is easily "recognised by the plume 



of feathers rising from the root 

 of the beak, which are much less 

 developed in the smaller Bur- 

 meister's seriema {Chunga bur- 

 meisteri) of Argentina, the only 

 other living representative of 

 the family Cariamidce. That 

 these birds are related to the 

 cranes seems practically certain, 

 their curious superficial resem- 

 blance to the secretary-bird, or 

 secretary -vulture, of southern 

 Africa (to which they also 

 approximate in habits), being 

 connected with the similarity 

 of the conditions under which 

 they live. The group is evi- 

 dently an ancient South Ameri- 

 can type, for it appears to be 

 akin to a gigantic extinct bird 

 (Phororhachus) of which the 

 remains occur in the Tertiary 

 deposits of the Santa Cruz dis- 

 trict of Patagonia. Large as it 

 was, this bird had a proportion- 

 ately big head, its skull being 

 nearly equal in size to that of 

 a horse. 



Another inter- 

 Trumpeters. 



estmg group in- 

 cludes the trumpeters, forest- 

 birds which take their name 

 from their peculiar, subdued, 

 trumpet-like sounds. The typi- 

 cal species is Psophia crepitans of Guiana and Amazonia, but the family 

 Psophiidce includes half a dozen other species, of which the united distri- 

 butional area extends from Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru to Amazonia. The 

 trumpeters are now classed as a subordinal group, placed between the sun-bitterns 

 and the seriemas. They are long-legged and long-necked birds, without plumes 

 or crests on the head, somewhat resembling big blackish guinea-fowls with abnor- 



TRUMPETER. 



