ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



1395 



NEST AND EGGS OF THE HOATZIN 

 The nest is invariably placed over the water 



and occasionally splashing into the water after 

 small fish. Awkward Guiana green herons, not 

 long out of the nest, crept like shadow silhou- 

 ettes of birds close to the dark water. High 

 overhead, like flecks of jet against the blue sky, 

 the vultures soared. Green dragonflies whirled 

 here and there, and great blue-black bees fum- 

 bled in and out of the hibiscus, yellowed with 

 pollen and too busy to stop a second in their 

 day-long labor. 



This little area held very strange creatures 

 as well, some of which we saw even in our few 

 hours' search. Four-eyed fish skittered over 

 the vultures soared. Green dragon-flies whirled 

 quiet, showing only as a pair of bubbly eyes. 

 Still more weird hairy caterpillars wriggled 

 their way through the muddy, brackish current 

 — aquatic larvae of a small moth which I had 

 not seen since I found them in the trenches of 

 Para. 



The only sound at this time of day was a 

 drowsy but penetrating tr-r-r-r-r-p! made by a 

 green-bodied, green-legged grasshopper of good 

 size, whose joy- in life seemed to be to lie 

 lengthwise upon a pimpler branch, and skreek 

 violently at frequent intervals, giving his wings 

 a frantic flutter at each utterance, and slowly 

 encircling the stem. 



In such environment the hoatzin lives and 

 thrives, and, thanks to its strong body odor, has 

 existed from time immemorial in the face of 



terrific handicaps. The odor is a strong musky 

 one, not particularly disagreeable. I searched 

 my memory at every whiff for something of 

 which it vividly reminded me, and at last the 

 recollection came to me — the smell, delectable 

 and fearfully exciting in former years — of ele- 

 phants at a circus, and not altogether elephants 

 either, but a compound of one-sixth sawdust, 

 another part peanuts, another of strange ani- 

 mals and three-sixths swaying elephant. That, 

 to my mind, exactly describes the odor of hoat- 

 zin as I sensed it among these alien sur- 

 roundings. 



As I have mentioned, the nest of the hoatzin 

 was invariably built over the water, and we 

 shall later discover the reason for this. The 

 nests were sometimes only four feet above high 

 water, or equally rarely, at a height of forty to 

 fifty feet. From six to fifteen feet included 

 the zone of four-fifths of the nests of these 

 birds. They varied much in solidity, some be- 

 ing frail and loosely put together, the dry, dead 

 sticks which composed them dropping apart al- 

 most at a touch. Usually they were as well 

 knitted as a heron's, and in about half the cases 

 consisted of a recent nest built upon the foun- 

 dations of an old one. There was hardly any 

 cavity at the top, and the coarse network of 

 sticks looked like a precarious resting place for 

 eggs and an exceedingly uncomfortable one for 

 young birds. 



FLEDGLING HOATZINS 

 One has already dived into tlie water 



