250 
Mr. 0. Salvin on the 
ceeding clay with one. under each arm. The first of these was 
a male, the other two females,—the three skins which were 
exhibited by Mr. Sclater at the Meeting of the Zoological Society 
on March 13,1860. Being particularly desirous both of seeing 
the bird alive and of shooting it myself, and having the fruit 
taken from the crop of one of the above-mentioned birds, as a 
clue to indicate in what trees it would most likely be found, I set 
off for the mountain soon after this, with Jose Ordonez for my 
guide. We started at six o'clock in the morning at break of day, 
reached the forest region at nine, and continued climbing until 
we had almost passed out of it into the region of Pines and 
coarse grass with which the peak is clothed, but no Oreophasis 
was met with. Descending again, we struck the barranco in 
which Jose had shot the specimens he brought me; but with no 
better success, except that I found unmistakeable “sign” in the 
shape of feathers, and the fruit of the tree I had been in search 
of. Though not successful, this expedition was satisfactory in 
one respect—I had seen a spot where the Oreophasis certainly had 
visited, and where my specimens had been killed. The truth of 
the latter fact I have no reason to doubt. From a habit one 
acquires of looking upon a Central American half-breed as a rascal 
till he has proved himself honest, I certainly did at first suspect 
that Jose was deceiving me, and that he had no idea of allowing 
me to poach upon his peculiar preserve of Oreophases. I regret 
that I cannot give any other than Jose's account of the habits of 
this bird; but as his stories bear a semblance of truth, I do not 
hesitate in transcribing them. In the early morning he told me 
he usually found them in the upper branches of the forest trees, 
searching for their favourite fruit, which they eat both ripe and 
unripe; as the day advances they descend to the underwood, where 
they remain all day, basking or scratching among the leaves. This 
is pretty much what a Penelope or a Crax does, both of which I 
have frequently had opportunities of observing in the forests of 
the low lands. The cry of the bird he could not describe 
satisfactorily. 
As the \olcan de Fuego is at present the only known 
locality from which the Oreophasis has been obtained, I will 
here shortly describe its physical conformation. The north- 
