446 Walter Goodfellow—Some Reminiscences of a Collector


Curassows ( Cracidce) were scarce with us at all seasons, and I never

saw but one species, one of the Curly-crested ones, and although

I offered a good reward, I only succeeded in getting one so very young

I doubted if I could possibly rear it. However, I did, and it became as

tame as the Penelopes. For a long time it kept with them, and perhaps

they taught it to fly over to the forest. Later it seemed to prefer the

company of the poultry, and spent part of the hot hours of the day

in the fowlhouse, a large building heavily thatched and with split

bamboo walls. When it was about two years old the men began to

report having seen it in the forest with a male, and one evening when

out with the dogs I came across them myself in a very high tree.

I whistled and my bird came lower down while the male flew off,

but the female was back at the house before me. In the end she stayed

away for longer periods and some nights was not in her usual sleeping

place under the verandah. Then came a time when she paid very

occasional and hurried visits, until one day she brought a nearly full-

grown young one with her, which only alighted on the roof and did

not stay. After this she made her home with me again and did not

wander for several months, in fact she resumed quite her old life among

the poultry. When I left the country she had not been seen for more

than a month. If she turned up again I never heard.


Nearer the Amazon, Curassows are popular birds with the Indians ;

in almost every village it is the usual bird one expects to find walking

about with full wings. There was always a mild excitement on arriving

at a village to see what livestock they might have, for sometimes one

found the most unexpected things, perhaps tied to the rafters in the

houses, or better still, to wait until the evening when semi-tame birds

came home to roost. I was once in a Napo village for a month, and

even at the end of that time something fresh still came in. Occasionally

an Indian shows affection for some pet animal or bird, but it is more

often the children who keep them, and the more uncivilized tribes

who are kindest to them. While I was in Bolivia I heard of a raid

on a village of remote forest Indians, and an American who had “ gone

native ” was among the party in the disgraceful affair. He told me

himself that he saw one woman running off before the rifles of the

raiders, with a monkey in her arms, and another snatch up a pet



