258 The Nahiralist in La Plata. 
' The case of a species in another order of birds 
— Cryptnri — strikes me as being similar to tliis of 
the oven-bird, and seems to lend some force to the 
suggestion I have made concerning the early develop- 
ment of voice in the young. 
Birds peculiar to South America are said by 
anatomists to be less specialized, lower, more 
ancient, than the birds of the northern continents, 
and among those which are considered lowest and 
most ancient are the Tinamous (rail and partridge 
like in their habits), birds that lead a solitary, 
retiring life, and in most cases have sweet melan- 
choly voices. Bhynchotus rufescens, a bird the 
size of a fowl, inhabiting the pampas, is perhaps 
the sweetest-voiced, and sings with great frequency. 
Its song or call is heard oftenest towards the 
evening, and is composed of five modulated notes, 
flute-like in character, very expressive, and uttered 
by many individuals answering each other as they 
sit far apart concealed in the grass. As we might 
have expected, the faculties and instincts of the 
young of this species mature at a very early period ; 
when extremely small, they abandon their parents 
to shift for themselves in solitude ; and when not 
more than one-fourth the size they eventually attain, 
they acquire the adult plumage and are able to fly 
as well as an old bird. I observed a young bird of 
this species, less than a quail in size, at a house on 
the pampas, and was told that it had been taken 
from the nest when just breaking the shell ; it had, 
therefore, never seen or heard the parent birds. 
Yet this small chick, every day at the approach of 
evening, would retire to the darkest corner of the 
