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Sydney Porter—Notes from South America



there saw, for the first time in a state of freedom, an old favourite of

mine, namely the Guira Cuckoo, to my mind one of the strangest

of birds. I had kept these birds some years ago and always fancied

that they were not in good condition, their feathers always seemed

loose and ill-fitting, their wings and tail always blowing about as though

they were not properly fixed to the body. They never seemed at home

either in the trees or on the ground. In his own home I expected to find

him a different bird, sleek and happy and in his proper environment,

but no, he was the same unfinished kind of bird that I knew as my pets

years ago. The first I saw was when we were sailing down the Parana

River ; they were in the weeping willows and the upstanding poplars,

and they seemed equally as ill at ease as the ones I had had at home.

Hudson in his Birds of La Plata , says, “ it is not yet quite in harmony

with its environment. Everywhere its habit is to feed exclusively on

the ground in spite of possessing feet formed for climbing ; but its

very scanty plumage, slow laborious flight, and long, square tail, so

unsuitable in cold boisterous weather, show that the species is a still

unmodified intruder from the region of perpetual summer many degrees

nearer to the equator.”


In general appearance, especially in general shape and plumage,

they look like a very small edition of that unique bird, the Hoatazin,

and one is apt to think that the resemblance is perhaps more than

superficial, and I would think that from its general demeanour it is

nearer to that bird than to the Cuckoos to which it is supposed to be

related. This may sound very ridiculous to the museum ornithologist,

but he has only dried skins to go by.


I was once wandering round a well-known bird store and happened

to see three of these birds and was at once struck by their very quaint

appearance, so I agreed to take a pair, but seeing that they were so

devoted to each other and hating to leave the odd one which would, no

doubt, linger in the store indefinitely, I took all three and never regretted

my purchase.


From the first, all three were absolutely fearless. The minute I

entered their aviary, they were all over me, on my arms, head, or

shoulders. Whatever one did the others did : the three seemed to move

in unison, in a kind of “ follow' my leader style The birds seemed to



