498 SCOLOPACEOUS COURLAN. 
The scolopaceous courlan inhabits principally Cayenne, 
Brazil, and Paraguay, where it is rather common: it is 
numerous in the island of Cuba, and other warm parts of 
America. In the United States, Florida appears to be its 
most natural residence, and a few instances have occurred of 
its visiting the middle States. The courlan leads a solitary 
life, or at most keeps in pairs ; night and day they ery out in 
a loud, sonorous, and resounding voice, caraw f being in the 
full sense of the word a crying-bird : its chief food is mollusca 
and other aquatic animals, and even frogs, but not snakes 
nor fishes: when frightened, they move their tail. Like all 
solitary and reserved characters, this bird is remarkably shy : 
it carefully hides itself, but as soon as aware of being dis- 
covered, it starts rapidly to a great elevation, its flight being 
long continued : they walk also with great agility, but never 
willingly wade into the water: they alight on the very summit 
of trees: they build in the grass near stagnant water, conceal- 
ing their nest with much art: they lay but two eggs: the 
young follow their parents soon after they are hatched, and 
are covered with blackish down, the throat only being 
whitish. 
The specimen figured was a female, killed on the 5th of 
February by Mr ‘Titian Peale, at Key Tavernier, on the 
Florida Reef. Mr Peale took it for the much-disputed erying- 
bird of Bartram. Mr Peale saw no other individual, but that 
we have described was brought by Mr F. Cozzens from Florida: 
one or two killed on the coast of New Jersey, near Long 
Branch, may be seen in the American Museum at New York. 
Mr Peale did not hear the bird utter any sound ; it was very 
unwilling to fly, and caused him some trouble to make it rise 
from the thick mangroves and other bushes where it kept. 
It appears to inhabit the low shores and swamps of the rivers 
and lakes of Florida, and perhaps Georgia, being merely 
a straggler north of this. Even there, we must conclude it 
to be rather a scarce species, as Mr Peale could never get in- 
formation about it; and even upon showing it to the most 
