CHAP, ii.] OUR OWN. 269 



Guan not sufficiently thrifty to insure breeding by-and- 

 by ; so Jamrach obligingly changed her, which I have 

 repented of ever since, as I have got a fine but un- 

 manageable one in lieu thereof I am daily thinking of 

 having the first back, but wait to see if the cock dies or 

 lives, when I must make some arrangement with Jam- 

 rach. So you see what a stupid mess I have made of 

 it! How do yours get on?" We were thus hard at 

 work trying to make a beginning of acclimatizing and 

 naturalizing some of the Cracidae in East Anglia and in 

 the south of England, in obedience to the suggestions of 

 Messrs. Temminck, &c., without yet suspecting that the 

 labour was in vain. The experiment proceeded 



" My poor Guan is dead, not surviving the fifth 

 attack. I thought of epilepsy, after I wrote to you, and 

 believe it was that. The birds might have been kept 

 short at Jamrach 's, and allowed no gravel [it would be 

 contrary to a dealer's interest not to take every care of 

 valuable birds], and my bird perhaps throve too fast 

 afterwards. He was a splendid fellow. I am not par- 

 ticularly tender-hearted, but I never wish to see a Guan 

 die again : it made noises just like a little Christian, 

 enough to bring the tears into your eyes, and was indeed 

 what the poor people call ' a hard- dying crater.' I have 

 dismissed the unruly hen, and have a pair of tame, 

 rather large ones, from Jamrach, one of which is nearly 

 chestnut colour on the head and breast I suppose a 

 two-year-old hen." 



One of our own. birds had died from inability to stand 

 the mild winter of 1848-9, but still the idea could not 

 be entertained that so many scientific and speculative 

 naturalists could be at fault, and the blame was then 

 supposed to lie with the London dealers. Specimens 

 from the metropolitan bird merchants are certainly often 



