crested curassow. 179 



Crested Curassow. 

 Crax Alector, Linn. 



Body, above and beneath, black ; the belly white : 

 cere yellow, united to the naked sides of the head. 



Crax Alector, Linn., Auct., Temminck, Index, p. 689. Hocco 

 de la Guiano, Buffon, PL Enl. Hoco Moluporanga, Temm. 

 GalUn. iii. 27. 



This appears to be the most common, and the most 

 easily domesticated, of all the species of curassow ; 

 but it seems to us that the accounts which authors 

 continue to copy from each other as to its natural history, 

 are in many respects erroneous. It is said, "^ that they 

 are tolerably plentiful, and make a considerable part 

 of the food of the planters, and the Indian hunters take 

 them in great quantities, as they are so tame that they 

 will scarcely fly away when several of the flock are shot, 

 — the noise of the gun not in the least alarming them ;" 

 and that " in many parts of South America they have 

 long been reclaimed/' That these birds might have 

 been as common as is here stated, a century ago, when 

 the soil of Guiana and Brazil had just begun to be 

 cultivated, is very possible ; but such a state of things 

 has long ceased to exist. Through all the tracts in the 

 latter country, and in its difterent provinces, which we 

 traversed, solely with a view of collecting its zoological 

 productions, we found all the large game exceedingly 

 scarce ; nor were we fortunate in procuring a single 

 specimen of the Craoe Alector, although we some- 

 times heard of its being occasionally seen by the remote 

 planters located on the verge of the unoccupied tracts. 

 As to this or any other species being kept in the poultry- 

 yards of the native Brazihans, we never saw a single 

 reclaimed specimen, through a tract of territory whicli 

 we traversed, extending some hundreds of miles. In 

 (nuana, these birds have long become so scarce, that in 

 a collection of many hundreds made in that country by 

 N 2 



