CHERRIE: ORNITHOLOGY OF THE ORINOCO REGION. 355 
CRACIDAEi— CURASSOWS, GUANS, CHACHALACAS. 
MiTUA TOMENTOSA (Spix). 
Crax tonientosa Spix, Av. Bras. II. 1823. p. 40, PI. 43. 
Mitua tomentosa Berlepsch & Hartert, p. 120. 
Native name Pauji ciilo Colorado. Common along the middle 
stretches of the river and up as far as the falls of Atures, but replaced 
on the upper river by Crax alector. 
Eye bay brown; bill pale horn color at tip, bright vinaceous basally 
on mandible and at centre of maxilla where the color deepens and 
darkens rapidly up to the base; ridge of culmen blackish; feet orange 
rufous. 
The Paujh are much esteemed as game birds throughout Vene- 
zuela — or perhaps I should say as table birds, for some of the qualities 
esteemed by the sportsman in the game bird are lacking. It is a bird 
of the thick forest regions, especially of localities where there is a 
dense undergrowth, and when pursued seeks safety by running, rather 
than by flight. 
A nest, containing two eggs with incubation far advanced, was 
found at Las Gaucas on the San Feliz River (a tributary of the 
Cuchivero River), June 2, 1897. The nest was about two metres 
from the ground, against the stem of a Corobo palm at a point where 
several of the great leaf-stems had been partially broken down and 
formed a sort of hollowed platform into which leaves from adjoining 
trees had either fallen, or been carried, and then lined with the 
narrow green leaflets from the palm itself. 
The eggs, which are normally a lusterless, parchment-like white, 
are much stained (with brown \arying in shade from wood brown 
to cinnamon) from the wet, decaying leaves on which they lay. They 
are ovate in form and measure 84 x 59 and 84 x 59 mm. The entire 
egg is thickly covered with small rounded granules, producing an 
almost sandpaper-like surface. 
This set of eggs was collected on the 2nd of June. They were 
immediately packed and jolted about on the back of a pack-mule for 
a distance of about seventy-five miles, yet on the 8th of July two young 
curassows emerged from these eggs and seemed little the worse for 
'In addition to the species observed by the writer and recorded by Berlepsch & Hartert. tlie following 
have also been recorded from the Orinoco Region: 
Pauxi pauxi (Linnaeus), is recorded from the river Cassiqucari and from the Orinoco by Pelzeln, 
Orn. Bras. (1870). p. 289. 
Orlalis ruficauda Jard. is recorded from the Rio Apure and the Rio Orinoco by Berlepsch, Ibis, 
1884 p. 440. 
