162 



Including the tail, it is two feet three inches 

 long. We had observed it also on the banks of 

 the Atabapo, the Temi, and the Rio Negro. 

 The flesh of the cahuei, which is frequently 

 eaten, is black, and somewhat tough. These 

 macaws, the plumage of which glows with the 

 most vivid tints of purple, blue, and yellow, are 

 a great ornament to the Indian farm-yards ; 

 they do not yield in beauty to the peacock, the 

 golden pheasant, the pauxis*, or the alectors. The 

 practice of rearing parrots, birds of a family so 

 different from the gallinaceous tribes, had al- 

 ready struck Columbus*^. When he discovered 

 America, he saw macaws, or large parrots, which 

 served as food to the natives of the Caribbee 

 islands instead of fowls. 



A majestic tree more than sixty feet high, 

 which the planters call jrutta de burro, grows 

 round the little village of Maypures. It is a 



* The word pauxi does not denote a species in the Spa- 

 nish colonies, but the two subgenera crax and ourax of Mr. 

 Cuvier. (A distinction is made between pauxi de piedra, 

 crax pauxi, and pauxi de copete, crax alector). The two other 

 subgenera of the alector are called at the Oroonoko pavas de 

 monte (penelope) and guacharacas (ortalida). 



t Gryn. 9 Orb. Nov. p. 68. The Spaniards found also in 

 Coriana, (on the coast of Coro), in the farm yards of the 

 Indians, anseres anates (ib. p. 83). Were these the Mus- 

 covy ducks {anas moschata,) known in the farm-yards of 

 France by the equally improper names of Barbary and Turk' 



