CHAP, ii.] GROUNDS OF EXPECTATION. 253 



We do not think it can be asserted that the Cracidse, 

 the Curassows and Guans, have not had a fair trial of 

 their usefulness and profitable increase; but the re- 

 sults, like those of so many other unsuccessful experi- 

 ments, have not been recorded, and attempts are conse- 

 quently renewed by successive generations of experi- 

 mentalists, to meet only with successive failures. It 

 is not pleasant, and requires just a little determina- 

 tion, to confess boldly, " I have tried hard to accom- 

 plish such or such an object, which everybody else, as 

 well as myself, thought very easy to effect, but I 

 could not succeed : I have been baffled ; and the thing 

 requires a cleverer or more wealthy person than myself 

 to perform." But unsuccessful experiments, faithfully 

 detailed, may, like the cases given in medical books, be 

 almost as instructive, and quite as useful, as if the 

 writer had the gratification of announcing a practical 

 triumph. It is certain that the publication of the ex- 

 periments in agriculture which have not been found 

 to answer, would be the means of saving much need- 

 less expense, and preventing much disappointment, and 

 so be conducive to the public good, as a beacon and a 

 guide to those who are to follow us. 



The main point on which writers rely in continuing 

 to recommend the trial of Curassows and Guans as an 

 addition to our stock of poultry is the mention of them 

 by Temminck as having bred in Holland previous to the 

 first French Revolution. It will, therefore, be to our 

 purpose to see what reliance is to be placed on that 

 circumstance, because these birds have not ceased to be 

 kept in Holland. Though the menageries of that date 

 were broken up and dispersed, the birds have been 

 continually imported from their native forests, and are 



