20 PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS : ZOOLOGY. 



creeping vines and brambles, but avoids equally the open grazing grounds 

 and the wooded stretches. It runs with surprising speed, and is very 

 difficult to flush without a dog, but once started flies straight and strong. 

 But, as has been repeatedly noticed by Hudson and others, the second 

 flight is much feebler, and if forced to rise for the third time it soon drops 

 and can then be easily caught by a dog. Its ordinary call consists of 

 four or five mellow notes closely resembling the call of the Baltimore 

 Oriole, and for months I failed to attribute it to the true source. The 

 eggs, four in number, are always laid on the ground in a rude nest 

 of grasses, etc. They are about the size of a hen's egg, of a beautiful, 

 purplish-chocolate color, and with a polish not met with outside this 

 family. It would be difficult to find an egg which could compare in 

 beauty with those laid by this bird. The species is more or less plenty at 

 all points on the pampas. Its flesh is not particularly good, but is a vast 

 improvement on the dry, tasteless flesh of the following species (Nothura 

 maculosa] which, nevertheless, is highly prized because it is white." (Bar- 

 rows, Auk, I, 4, p. 317, 1884.) 



Genus NOTHURA Wagler. 



Type. 



Tinamus, Spix (nee Lath.), Av. Bras. II. p. 63 (1825). . N. boraquira. 

 Nothura, Wagler, Syst. Av. p. 297 (1827); Salvador!, 

 Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus. XXVII. p. 558 (1895); Sharpe, 



Hand-List Bds. I. p. n (1899) N. boraquira. 



Nothurus, part. Sw. Classif. Bds. II. p. 345 (1837). 

 Nothera G. R. Gray, List Gen. Bds. p. 63 (1840). 



Geographical Range. Bolivia, southern Brazil, Argentina and north- 

 ern Patagonia. 



NOTHURA MACULOSA (Temminck). 



Inambui, Azara, Apunt. III. p. 40, (1805: Paraguay). 



Tinamus maculosus, Temm. Pig. etGallin. III. pp. 557, 748 (1815) ; PWied. 



Reis. nach Bras. I. p. 116 (1820) (=medius, Spix?) ; Temm. PI. Col., 

 'genre Tinamou, p. 2 (1826) (= major, Spix) ; PWied., Beitr. IV. p. 



519 (1832) (=medius, Spix?); Less. Compl. de Buff., 2d ed. Ois. p. 



237 (1838) ; Nathus. J. f. O. 1879, p. 358 (egg), 1882, p. 283. 



