Courlans and Trumpeters 337 



laboriously, the legs dangling down, and mounts vertically to a considerable 

 height. He flies high, the wings curved upward and violently flapping at irregu- 

 lar intervals; descending, he drops suddenly to the earth, the wings motionless, 

 pointing up, and the body swaying from side to side, so that the bird presents 

 the appearance of a falling parachute. On smooth ground he walks faster than 

 a man, striking out his feet in a stately manner and jerking the tail, and runs 

 rapidly ten or twelve yards before rising. At the approach of night it becomes 

 active, uttering long, clear, piercing cries many times repeated, and heard dis- 

 tinctly two miles away. Those cries are most melancholy and, together with 

 its mourning plumage and recluse habits, have made for the Courlan several 

 vernacular names. He is called the Lamenting Bird and Crazy Widow, but is 

 more familiarly known as the Carau. Near sunset the Caraus leave the reed- 

 beds and begin to ascend the streams to visit their favorite fishing grounds. 

 They are very active at night, retiring again at the approach of morning, and 

 sometimes pass the day perched on trees, but more frequently concealed in dense 

 reed-beds. As the breeding season draws near they become exceedingly clam- 

 orous, making the marshes resound day and night with their long, wailing cries. 

 The nest is built among the rushes, and contains ten or twelve eggs as large as 

 a Turkey's, slightly elliptical, sparsely marked with blotches of pale brown and 

 purple on a dull white ground, the whole egg having a powdery or floury ap- 

 pearance. When the nest is approached the parent birds utter sharp, angry 

 notes as they walk about at a distance. The young and old birds live in one 

 flock until the following spring." 



The Trumpeters (Subfamily Psophiina). In some respects affording a 

 connecting link between the Cranes and certain other Crane-like birds are 

 the peculiar South American birds known as Trumpeters. They are small 

 birds about the size of a large fowl, although they have of course much 

 longer legs and neck, their total length being from seventeen to twenty-one 

 inches. The head is of moderate size and the bill short and sometimes 

 swollen, suggesting, as long ago pointed out, the "expression of face" of 

 the Pheasants, or as another writer has put it, " large, long-legged, blackish 

 Guinea-fowls." The wings are short and rounded, the fourth quill longest, 

 with the inner secondaries as long as the primaries. The wings are not much 

 used for flight, as the birds depend largely upon their running powers for escaping 

 danger. The plumage is soft, the head and neck especially being covered with 

 soft, velvet-like feathers, a condition produced by the upw r ard curvation of the 

 central shafts, combined with the soft, downy structure of the finer divisions. 

 The under tail-coverts particularly are long and lax. 



These birds take their name of Trumpeter from the loud, prolonged, and 

 far-reaching trumpet-like cry which they utter, it is said, with the bill widely 

 opened. It appears that the males only possess this voice, and it has been very 

 generally supposed that it was made possible by a great elongation and convolu- 

 tion of the windpipe, but, according to Beddard, the latter statement requires 

 confirmation. It has also been stated that the windpipe communicates with 

 an air space, apparently after the fashion of the Emeu, but this is also questioned 



