CHAP. ii.J CEACID^ IN HOLLAND 255 



care (aux pen de soins particuliers) that is given to these 

 birds ; which, without contradiction, demand the most as- 

 siduous attention before becoming perfectly acclimated." 

 Now, whoever has had the gratification of being per- 

 mitted to view the aviaries at Knowsley, will not allow 

 that the birds there have any right to complain of the 

 want of special care, assiduous attention, or any other 

 conceivable circumstance to encourage and tempt them 

 to make themselves at home, and settle, and become the 

 founders of an immigrant family in a new land ; and if 

 the Guans there located decline to become an addition 

 to our poultry stock, the fault must be laid to their own 

 obstinacy and perverseness, and not to the absence of 

 any circumstance necessary to their comfort, if they were 

 but inclined to favour us with a few broods. Even at the 

 Zoological Gardens, in a more confined space, and with 

 more frequent interruption from visitors, they have quite 

 sufficient accommodation, and quite adequate attention 

 from very intelligent keepers, to multiply with rapidity, 

 if it were but in them to do so. The provoking circum- 

 stance of the matter is, that they are so extremely tame 

 and impudent, so apparently happy and contented, that 

 it seems a thing of course that they should lay and hatch 

 at the proper season, and makes one inclined to ask them 

 with some severity, why they do not go on properly, and 

 conduct themselves like other domestic fowls ; and to 

 reason with them, and insist upon their good behaviour, 

 as if they were so many refractory children. 



But all we can learn from Temminck to guide us is, 

 that one or two species of Guans and Curassows have 

 bred in Holland; so also they have in this country; and 

 so too have Monkeys, and Parrots, and Giraffes, and 

 Emeus ; and those who are hopeful may encourage an 



