ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



IELLAN ITLANL) GEESE AND FOSTER MOTHER 

 fledgelings were fmir times the silky's size, her cluck 



Tlie curassows arc an interesting group of 

 South American gallinaceous birds which would 

 seem to lend themselves well to domestication. 



Unfortunately, while readily tamed and easi- 

 ly kept, they arc difficult to breed. Previous to 

 1918, there was but one record of the breeding 

 of any species of curassow in this country. Mr. 

 E. A. Watts, on the estate of Mrs. Frederic Fer- 

 ris Thompson, having reared the young of the 

 globose curassow. 



A fine pair of banded curassows lias lived in 

 our Flying-Cage for several years. One autumn, 

 after the removal of the birds to winter quar- 

 ters, we discovered two large white eggs in the 

 top of a tall stump and suspected the curas- 

 sows. During the following season they were 

 watched closely and the female was soon found 

 incubating two eggs on top of the stump. The 

 eggs were removed at once and entrusted to a 

 silky hen; for young curassows would have little 

 chance of survival in such mixed company. But 

 our hopes were never realized, for the eggs, as 

 well as two clutches that followed, were infer- 

 tile. In 1917. we succeeded in hatching a young 

 bird, which throve until it was about a month 

 old. when it mysteriously disappeared. Last 

 spring we were more fortunate and a depend- 



able silky, after an incubation period of twenty- 

 eight days, hatched two strong curassow chicks. 

 They were cared for solicitously, but in spite of 

 our attention, the smaller one died. The other. 

 however, grew well from the first. It feathered 

 witli surprising rapidity and by September first, 

 when two months old, the youngster was in full 

 male plumage and distinguishable from its male 

 parent only by the difference in size. As far 

 as we arc able to learn, there is no previous in- 

 stance of the breeding of this bird in captivity. 



The Alligator Chorus- — The alligator colony 

 in the Reptile House has been having a very 

 noisy time of late weeks. The 'gator colony 

 usually bellows when the whistles blow at 

 twelve o'clock. During the past month, how- 

 ever, there was a prolonged uproar from whis- 

 tles large and small, whenever a troop ship ar- 

 rived, and this was taken by the alligators to be 

 the chorus of a distant colony and they immedi- 

 ately joined in. A number of our soldier and 

 sailor visitors, who have had this condition ex- 

 plained, have been much amused and declared 

 the 'gators to be "right there" in patriotic 

 spirit. 



