PALAMIDEIDS. | OSTEOLOGIA AVIUM. [PALAMEDEIN &. 
2] 
found it ; it does not however appear to be found at Paraguay, as Azara makes no mention of it. 
I myself never met with the bird in Brazil, until travelling from South to North [had reached the 
island Caxoeirinka (Kaschoerinnia) in the river Belmonte, that is to say the sixteenth degree of 
south latitude. I was told there that it had never been seen higher up the stream towards Minas. 
In the neighbourhood of the above-named island in the Belmonte it is very numerous. It only 
frequents lonely spots far removed from the habitations of man. I never met with it, as Sonnini 
describes, in open places, only in the depths of the primeval forest on the bor lers of the river, after 
I had made some days’ journey up the stream of the Belmonte. There we frequently heard the 
loud, uncommon ery of this bird, which in its modulation has some resemblance to our own wood- 
pigeon, but it is much louder and more shrill and the throat note is pitched in another key. 
“ Sometimes we saw the Aniumas as they strutted on the sandbanks and in and out of the 
river, If we approached them, they took fright, and then, both in the size and broad expanse of 
‘their wings, and in their colour and manner of flapping them, they resembled the Urubus 
(Cathartes Aura et Urubu). They always perched in the summit of some thickly-leaved forest 
tree, where we constantly heard their voices, though we could seldom see the birds themselves. 
In the breeding season the Aniuma pairs, at other times four, five or six are seen together ; they 
go to feed on the sandbanks or in the thickly wooded marshes, which are so frequent in these 
forests. The food of these birds appears to be entirely vegetable, at least in the five or six, 
whose stomachs I have examined. I found nothing but leaves of a kind of grass plant and of 
another broad-leaved grass plant. 
“The nest of this bird is found on the ground in the wooded marshes near the river. The 
Botocudians state that it contains two large white eggs, and consists of only one layer. The 
young birds run at once on leaving the shell. 
“The flesh of the Aniuma is not good eating; the Botocundians devour it all the more 
greedily, as the Portuguese do not eat it at all. The fine long pinion feathers are used for writing, 
the tail feathers are much valued by the savages for their arrows. There is a popular superstition 
that this bird always dips his frontal horn into the water when he wishes to drink.” 
Maregrave calls the Aniuma a bird of prey, in other respects he describes him very 
correctly, and represents his voice tolerably correct by the word “ Vihu, Vihu.” He mentions 
the great attachment subsisting between the male and female when paired, but of this the 
Brazilian sportsmen made no mention to me. That the two sexes differ greatly in size, as 
Marcegrave represents, is incorrect. That the nest has the shape of an oven, must, if the state- 
ments of the Botocundians is to be believed, be a fable. 
The following note was sent to me in reply to one of mine, by Mr. Bartlett, of the 
Zoological Gardens of London :— 
“Tn reply to your note, I find the Chauna and Palamideidz feed upon green food principally ; 
they will also eat boiled rice, bread, and boiled Indian corn, but no flesh of any kind.”— 
“ Yours faithfully, A. BARTLETT.” 
37 
