Occasional Notes, 
The habits of the Hoatzin. — In the ** Ibis" for 1890, 
in a paper on the habits of the hoatzin, the writer made 
a casual note on the peculiar diving power of a young 
nestling which had fallen, or had been shaken, into the 
water. At each attempt to seize it, the little bird had 
dived and swum away rapidly by means of its legs and 
featherless wings, the latter being used as a sort of 
flippers ; and it being impossible to trace its course in the 
very dark and dirty water of the lower Berbice river 
where the incident took place, the little creature even- 
tually succeeded in getting out of reach or pursuit among 
the spiny growth of the Bunduri Pimpler (Drepanocarpus 
lunatus) which the birds chiefly frequent. The incident 
was the more curious in that the hoatzin is never seen 
on the ground or in the water ; and the nestlings cling on 
so tightly and strongly to the branches and twigs by 
means of their feet, wings and beak that it is hardly 
possible that they ever fall off, and even when the 
attempt is made to knock them down, it is by no means 
an easy task among the closely crowded and interlacing 
twigs and branches. 
In ornithological circles, the matter seems to have 
excited a considerable amount of interest, if not of doubt ; 
and the writer has taken steps on every possible occasion 
since, wherever the nestlings were met with, to verify 
the incident — the first time accompanied by Mr. C. A. 
Lloyd, with whose name the readers of Timehri ^xo. quite 
familiar. On every occasion, the experiment has had 
the same termination, nor has it ever been possible, with- 
