CHAP, ii.] PLAUSIBLE HOPES. Q57 



we translate: "The natural disposition of the Hoccos 

 seems in some sort made for domesticity : it is certain 

 that by applying more to rearing them than we have 

 done hitherto, we should succeed by the force of care in 

 procuring from some species of this genus, perhaps from 

 all, the same utility, joined to the same enjoyments, 

 which repay us so amply for the care we have bestowed 

 in rendering familiar other species of gallinaceous 

 Birds. The natural disposition of Hoccos, hatched and 

 reared in domesticity, is more particularly to be com- 

 pared to the soft and peaceable manners of the Cocks : 

 they love to find themselves in the neighbourhood of 



man, whose society they appear to court 



Once acclimated " there is the rub " they are not 

 delicate as to the kind of their food ; " nor are they 

 without being acclimated " they eat indifferently 

 maize, peas, rice, bread," &c., &c. And we therefore 

 allow that he had plausible reason for hoping that some 

 advantage might result from attempting the domestica- 

 tion of this inviting family of birds. "The Marail," 

 says Sonnini, "is easily tamed. I have seen one whose 

 familiarity was troublesome; it was sensible to caresses: 

 and when its own were responded to, it displayed 

 marks of the liveliest joy by its movements and its 

 cries, which resembled those of a Hen calling her 

 chickens around her." Again, " a pair of these birds 

 (Penelope Siffleur, or Whistling Guan), sent from the 

 colonies of Dutch Guiana, lived a long time in a me- 

 nagerie near Utrecht. M. Backer" (any relation of the 

 Messrs. Baker, of Chelsea?) "also kept some in his 

 beautiful menagerie near the Hague. They are familiar 

 birds, not unquiet, and live in harmony with the other 

 occupants of the poultry-court." 



