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The great Spanish naturalist Don Felix de Azara was the original discoverer of this well-marked 

 species of Puff-bird. Azara met with it in the forests of Paraguay, and described it in his 

 celebrated work on the birds of that country as " El Chacuru," its native name among the 

 Guarani Indians. This term was subsequently Latinized by Vieillot into Bucco chacuru. 



Several other appellations have been bestowed on this species by subsequent writers. 

 Lichtensteiu described it in his list of the duplicates of the Berlin Museum in 1823 as Capita 

 strigilatus, while in the following year Temminck figured it in his ' Planches Coloriees ' as 

 Cainto melanotis, and in 1841 Swainson gave an illustration of it in his ' Ornithological Drawings' 

 under the title of Capifo leucotis. All these names were established upon specimens from 

 South-eastern Brazil, where this bird is by no means uncommon. Prince Maximilian of Neuwied 

 says that he met with it in the bushes and wooded valleys of Bahia, yet not very frequently. 

 It is a still, solitary bird ; and he never heard its voice. He says it is generally seen sitting on a 

 low bough or hopping upon the ground in the thick bush. Fine specimens of this bird from 

 the same district were obtained by the late Dr. Wucherer for Messrs. Salvin and Godman's 

 collection. Further southwards it occurs in collections from Eio, and was received by the 

 Berlin Museum from Sao Paulo. In the latter province Natterer obtained specimens at Mato- 

 dentro, Ypanema, Ytarare, and other localities, and found " grubs and earth-beetles " in their 

 stomachs. 



Dr. Burmeister met with this Puff-bird during his stay at Lagoa Santa, in the province of 

 Minas. It sits, he tells us, solitary and still upon exposed twigs under the forest trees, and 

 without moving a muscle allows the observer to approach to within a distance of six or eight 

 paces. Its food is insects, which it catches from its perch when they come near. Dr. Burmeister 

 never obtained the nest ; but was told by the Brazilians that it builds in holes in the earth and 

 lays several vvhite eggs. 



On his journey along the Brasilio-Bolivian frontier Natterer likemse met with this Puff- 

 bird, in several localities in the province of Mato Grosso. Castelnau and Deville found it in the 

 same district ; and d'Orbigny obtained it in the Bolivian provinces of Yungas and Santa Cruz de 

 la Sierra. I have been able to examine specimens from both of these well-known expeditions 

 through the courtesy of the officers of the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle of Paris. M. Oustalet 

 had nearly come to the conclusion that the Bolivian form belongs to a different species. But 

 the variation from the Brazilian form is so slight that I could not venture to separate it, although 

 some years ago, when I examined some Bolivian specimens in the collection of Professor Behn 

 at Kiel, I was rather of the contrary opinion and had provided it with a MS. name. 



On comparing the Brazilian skins in Messrs. Salvin and Godman's collection with those 

 collected by Mr. Buckley in the Bolivian province of Yungas, I can find but slight differences. 

 The head above is rather darker, and the whole plumage below rather more suffused with 

 ochraceous, while the irregular cross bands on the breast and flanks are not so well defined. 

 But I have observed the same variations in the lower plumage in some Brazilian skins. My 

 conclusion is, therefore, that Bucco chacuru extends over the interior of Bolivia up to the slopes 

 of the Western Andes. Whether it also occurs in the wood-region of Eastern Peru, as Tschudi 

 asserts, I am not quite certain, as I have never seen examples from that locality ; but I see no 



