368 MR.T. J. MOORE ON CHAUNA DERBIANA. [June 26, 



Fisch. Syn. Mamm. p. 453, 1829 ; Desmoul. Diet. Class, iii. p. 384. 

 23; Sundevall, Pecora, p. 57; Gray, Proc. Zool. Sue. 1850, p. 232. 

 | 



The following papers were read : — 



1 . On the Habitat of the Derbyan Crested Screamer (Chauna 

 derbiana, G. R. Gray) . By Thomas J. Moore, C.M.Z.S., 

 Keeper of the Derby Museum, Liverpool. 



The type specimen and one other example of this rare bird, both 

 in this Museum, are, I believe, the only hitherto distinctly recog- 

 nized specimens of Chauna derbiana. This species, which was 

 named and figured in January 18-15 by Mr. G. R. Gray, in his 

 ' Genera of Birds,' from a specimen brought from Belize to England 

 by Mr. J. Bates (not Mr. H. W. Bates of the Amazons), who had it 

 some months alive, appears to have been unhesitatingly and not un- 

 naturally looked upon as a native of Central America. And though 

 Mr. Gray, in pursuance of his general plan, gives no locality to 

 the species in his text, he is clearly speaking of this when in his 

 notes on the genus he gives Central as well as South America as 

 habitats. 



Dr. Sclater, in February 186-4, being specially desirous of ascer- 

 taining its native country, wrote to me for any information I could 

 give him on this point, and my reply will be found in his paper on 

 the genus in the Society's 'Proceedings' for 1864, p. 75. That reply 

 endorsed the received opinion, notwithstanding that our second bird 

 claimed to be from Bogota. I could, indeed, hardly have come to 

 any other conclusion. 1 had no other evidence to bring forward in 

 support of Bogota, while the type specimen, a stuffed bird, bore a 

 label by the stuffer inscribed "J. Bates, Peten, Sept. 1843," and, 

 far more important still, the following label in Bates's own hand- 

 writing : — " Kept this alive by cramming it with food upwards of 

 four months. Died while I was at Peten." 



Now Bates was sent by the late Lord Derby to Guatemala and 

 Honduras to collect mammals and birds both living and dead. His 

 first duty was, if possible, to procure living examples of Meleagris 

 ocellata. He returned, after an absence of fifteen months, with a 

 large collection living and dead, including one living female, and 

 several skins of both sexes, of the Meleagris, and, greater prizes 

 still, a skin of each of two previously unknown remarkable birds, the 

 Oreophasis derbiana and this Chauna. The locality of " Peten " 

 seems to have been at once accepted by Lord Derby for the latter, 

 and it was so recorded in the ' Knowsley Catalogue.' I had seen no 

 reason to doubt the localities ascribed to other specimens of Bates's 

 collecting ; and of the still more remarkable Oreophasis, inhabiting 

 an exceedingly limited district, additional examples had been ob- 

 tained in the same country by subsequent collectors. 



And yet, in spite of all this strong circumstantial evidence in 

 favour of the conclusion that the Chauna derbiana was a. native, if 



