TINAMOUS. 
225 
perching, yet he observed a particular structure in the leg 
which enables it to sleep with security on the trees. The 
back part of the leg, below the knee, is flat and somewhat 
concave, and furnished with strong pointed scales, which 
are very rough, and catch your finger if you move it along 
from the knee to the toe ; these stick into the bark, and 
must assist the bird much in retaining its position. Our 
traveller says that this bird at the close of day utters a loud, 
monotonous, plaintive whistle, and then springs into the 
tree. In the Guiana forests, the same observing journalist 
records that, before dawn, and sometimes even at midnight, 
this whistle may be heard from the depths of the forest. 
The flesh of the large tinamou is delicious ; and as it is 
nearly as large as the black cock, the quantity of it is not to 
be despised. 
Among the mountains of Bolivia the traveller finds occa- 
sionally, as he would do the grouse or ptarmigan, a pretty 
bird allied to the tinamous, and named after Mr. Pentland, 
who first discovered it {Tinamotis Pentlandi). Mr. Bridges'^ 
found this bird close to the snow, at an elevation of 14,000 
feet, looking for its food among the stones in grassy places 
on the sides of the Andes. When flushed, it uttered a 
* Proceedings of the Zoological Society, March 23, 1847. 
Q 
