ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



1397 



the flight feathers were less than a half-inch in 

 length. No age would have showed to better 

 advantage every movement of wings or head. 



When a mother hoatzin took reluctant flight 

 from her nest^ the 3'oung bird at once stood up- 

 right and looked curiously in every direction. 

 No slacker he, crouching flat or awaiting his 

 mother's directing cries. From the moment he 

 was left alone he began to depend upon the 

 warnings and signs which his great beady eyes 

 and skinny ears conveyed to him. Hawks and 

 vultures had swejot low over his nest and mother 

 unheeded. Coolies in their boats had paddled 

 underneath with no more than a glance upward. 

 Throughout his week of life, as through his 

 parents' and their parents' parents' lives, no 

 danger had disturbed their peaceful existence. 

 Only for a sudden wind storm such as that which 

 the week before had upset nests and blown out 

 eggs, it might be said that for the little hoatzin 

 chicks life held nothing but siestas and munch- 

 ings of pimpler leaves. 



But one little hoatzin, if he had any thoughts 

 such as these, failed to count on the invariable 

 exceptions to every rule, for this day the to- 

 tally unexpected happened. Fate, in the shape 

 of enthusiastic scientists, descended upon him. 

 He was not for a second nonj^lussed. If we 

 had concentrated upon him a thousand strong, 

 by boats and by land, he would have fought 

 the good fight for freedom and life as calmly 

 as he waged it against us. And we found him 

 no mean antagonist, and far from reptilian in 

 his ability to meet new and unforeseen condi- 

 tions. 



His mother, who a moment before had been 

 packing his capacious little crop with predi- 

 gested pimpler leaves, had now flown off to an 

 adjoining group of mangroves, where she and 

 his father croaked to him hoarse encouragement. 

 His flight feathers hardly reached beyond his 

 finger tips, and his body was covered with a 

 sparse coating of sooty black down. So there 

 could be no resort to flight. He must defend 

 himself, bound to earth like his assailants. 



Hardly had his mother left when his comical 

 head, with thick, blunt beak and large intelli- 

 gent eyes appeared over the rim of the nest. 

 His alert expression was increased by the sus- 

 picion of a crest on his crown where the down 

 was slightly longer. Higher and higher rose 

 his head, supported on a neck of extraordinary 

 length and thinness. No more than this was 

 needed to mark his absurd resemblance to some 

 strange, extinct reptile. A young dinosaur must 

 have looked much like this, while for all tliat 



my glance revealed, I might have been looking 

 at a diminutive Galapagos tortoise. Indeed this 

 simile came to mind often when I became more 

 intimate with nestling hoatzins. 



Sam, my black tree-climber, kicked off his 

 shoes and began creeping along the horizontal 

 limbs of the pimplers. At every step he felt 

 carefully with a calloused sole in order to avoid 

 the longer of the cruel thorns, and punctuated 

 every yard with some gasp of pain or muttered 

 personal prayer, "Pleas' doan' stick me, 

 Thorns !" 



At last his hand touched the branch, and it 

 shook slightly. The young bird stretched his 

 mittened hands high above his head and waved 

 them a moment. With similar intent a boxer 

 or wrestler flexes his muscles and bends his 

 body. One or two uncertain, forward steps 

 brought the bird to the edge of the nest at the 

 base of a small branch. There he stood, and 

 raising one wing leaned heavily against the 

 stem, bracing himself. My man climbed higher 

 and the nest swayed violently. 



Now the brave little hoatzin reached up to 

 some tiny side twigs and aided by the project- 

 ing ends of dead sticks from the nest, he climbed 

 with facility, his thumbs and forefingers appar- 

 ently being of more aid than his feet. It was 

 fascinating to see him ascend, stopping now and 

 then to crane his head and neck far out, turtle- 

 wise. He met every difficulty with some new 

 contortion of body or limbs, often with so quick 

 or so subtle a shifting as to escape my scrutiny. 

 The branch ended in a tiny crotcli and here 

 perforce, ended his attempt at escape by climb- 

 ing. He stood on the swaying twig, one wing 

 clutched tight, and braced himself with both 

 feet. 



Nearer and nearer crept Sam. Not a quiver 

 on the part of the little hoatzin. We did not 

 know it, but inside that ridiculous head there 

 was definite decision as to a deadline. He 

 watched the approach of this great, strange 

 creature — this Danger, this thing so wholly 

 new and foreign to his experience, and doubt- 

 less to all the generations of his forebears. A 

 black liand grasped the thorny branch six feet 

 from his perch, and like a flash he played liis 

 next trick — the only remaining one he knew, one 

 that set him apart from all modern land birds 

 as the frog is set apart from the swallow. 



The young hoatzin stood erect for an instant, 

 and then both wings of the little bird were 

 stretched straight back, not folded, bird-wise, 

 but dana;ling loosely and reaching well beyond 



