4 BIRDS OF BRITISH GITIANA. 



* galliiia del monto con los hiiavos aziiles,' Avhicli at once 

 identified it. 



" We found that the Tinaniou inliahited dense jungle, eppecinlly 

 on the slopes of rather stee}) hill-sides, and in such places their 

 high-pitched, rolling trill would occasionally be heard. To catch 

 sight of them was a difficult matter, and only twice did they give 

 us an oppportunity to use our glasses and gun. The dark cross- 

 bars or markings show distinctly on the dorsal plumage, which, 

 in shadow, appeal's strongly bluish. 



"On April 12th, after hearing a bird call near at hand, wo 

 forced our way towards it into an open glade, a former clearing of 

 some Indian, or made by the cutting of trees for the Pitch 

 Lake Company. 



"A Tinamou was seen to creep stealthily along close to the 

 ground, keeping near a rotten log. As it crouched and sjirang 

 into the air in flight, we secured it, and found it was of this 

 species. It proved to be a male bird, with the breast- feathers 

 much worn from incul)ating. Near where we first caught sight 

 of the bird we found a nest with two eggs still warm from the 

 lieat of the parent's body. It consisted merely of a slight hollow 

 scratched in the ground near the end of the log, in a rather open 

 ])atch of grass. One egg was clear, the other was about to hatch. 

 Tiiey are of a medium shade of shining turquoise-blue, the egg 

 containing the embryo being about a shade darker than the 

 other. The inner surface of the shell is pale, pearl-grey. In 

 shape they are s})heroidal, with almost equally rounded ends. 

 The meiisurements are: the clear egg 5G x 4b mm., the fertile 

 egg 58 X 48 mm.''-' 



2. Tinamus major. 



Great Tinamou. 



Tinamits major (Omel.), Syst. Nut. i. p. 7G7, 17S9 (Cayenne) ; Brabnimie 

 & Chubb, l^. S. Amer. i. p. 2, no. 10, 1912. 



Trachi/pcbiius suhcridatus Cab. in Schomb. Keis. Guian. iii. p. 749, 

 1848 ; Brown, Canoe and Camp Life, p. 48, 1876 (Puruni 

 River). 



Tinamus sulcristatus Salvin, Ibis, 1880, p. 181 (Camacusa: Menune 

 Mts.) ; W. L. Sclatur, Ibis, 1887, p. 817 (Maccasseenia, Pomeroon 

 Kiver) ; Queleh, Timehri (2) iv. pp. 220, 326, 1890 (Upper Berbice 

 Kiver) ; Lloyd Price, op. cit. v. p. 68, 1891 (nest and eggs) ; 

 Salvadori, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxvii. p. 504, 1895 (Takutu Kivor) ; 

 Lloyd, Tiuieliri (2) xi. p. 1, 1897 (habits) ; Beebe, Our Search 

 for a Wilderness, pp. 319, 389, 1910 (Aremu Kiver). 



