54 NATURAL HISTORY OF BIRDS. 



call is composed of live or six long notes, with a mellow, flute-like sound, and so 

 impressively uttered and sweetly modulated, that it is, perhaps, the sweetest bird- 

 music heard in the Pampas. 



The tinamous are considered rather stupid birds, and Darwin relates of another 

 species, Nothura major, which is smaller, has a short bill, and no tail, that a* man on 

 horseback, by riding round and round in a circle, or rather in a spiral, so as to approach 

 closer each time, may knock on the head almost as many as he pleases. The more 

 common method is to catch them with a noose, or little lasso, made of the stems of an 

 ostrich's feather, fastened to the end of a long stick. A boy on a quiet old horse will 

 frequently thus catch thirty or forty in a day. 



The smallest species is the Ynambu carape ( Taoniscus nanus) from Brazil and 

 Paraguay, it being only six inches long. It has no rectrices, but the coverts are dense 

 silky, and greatly elongated so as to form a kind of a train. It seems to be still more 

 unable to keep up a continued flight than the Hkynchotus; but little is known of its 

 habits beyond Azara's account. 



The foregoing birds, together with most of the species composing the family, 

 belong to the group Tinamina?. In the martinets (Calopezus elegans) we have a 

 representation of the Tinamotinae. Mr. Hudson dissected a specimen, and found 

 a most extraordinary structure of the intestinal canal, which he describes as divided 

 near the stomach into a pair of great ducts that extend almost to the entire length of 

 the abdominal cavity, and are thickly set with rows of large, membranous, clam-shaped 

 protuberances. Externally, the martineta. from size and mottled plumage, somewhat 

 resembles the Rhynchotus, but is less reddish, and has a shorter bill, while its head is 

 ornamented with a long, slender crest, " which, when excited, the bird carries direct for- 

 ward, like a horn." Mr. Hudson remarks further that it is found in the northwestern 

 portion of the Plata States, and south to the Rio Negro of Patagonia, frequenting the 

 elevated table-lands, where patches of scattered dwarf scrub occur among the close 

 thickets, and subsisting on seeds and berries. They go in coveys of from half a dozen 

 to twenty individuals, and, when disturbed, do not usually take to flight, but start up 

 one after another, and run off with amazing swiftness. They are extremely fond of 

 .dusting themselves. 



ORDER. GASTORNITHES. 



In March, 1855, it was announced to the French Academy of Sciences that M. 

 Gaston Plante had found in the conglomerate underneath the plastic clay at Bas- 

 Meudon, France, a leg-bone of a gigantic bird, to which Mr. Herbert gave the name 

 Gastornis parisiensis, " in order to indicate both the name of the discoverer and the 

 locality where it was found." Shortly after, a thigh-bone was discovered, only three 

 metres distant from the place where the leg-bone had been found. These remains, 

 from the lowest eocene beds, were conscientiously studied by several savants, but the 

 great difference in their conclusions did not throw much light upon the affinities 

 of the bird. Mr. Herbert, Milne-Edwards, and Lemoine came to the conclusion that 

 Gastornis or rather its legs showed relationship to the Lamellirostres, or the duck 

 order. Valenciennes referred it to the neighborhood of the albati'osses, while Lartet and 

 Owen demonstrated some points of resemblance to the waders, particularly the rails. 



Recently additional material was discovered by the indefatigable Dr. Lemoine, 

 of Reims, France, who has been enabled to describe two other species of Gastornis, G. 

 minor and G. edtcardsii, the former, however, from the fragment of a leg-bone only, 



