Measurements. -~ 
Male (3) Female (2) 
Wing, 207-220 (215.6) Wing, 200-203 
Tail, 197-212 (202.6) Tail, 195-197 
Tarsus, 52-55 (53.6) Tarsus, 50-54 
Exposed culmen, 27 (27) Exposed culmen, 24~-25 
General Distribution.--Pacific slope of Guatemala, El Salvador, and northern Nicaragua. 
Distribution in Guatemala.--Tropical Zone woodlands of the Pacific slope, ranging up to 
elevationsof at least 2,000 feet. 
Records.--Cerritos, Santa Roea, March 28, 1946; Tiquisate, April 11-15, 1946; San José, 
April 2-6, 1947; Patulul, April 14, 1947; Finca Valle-Lirios, Escuintla, March 23-25, 
1947; Finca Helvetia, Quetzaltenango, April 10-13, 1947; Friajanes, Guatemala, April 17, 
1947. It was reported to us by natives at: Lake Atescatempa, April 27, 1947, and 
April 17-20, 1947; Chocold, Suchitepequez, March 9, 1947; Escuintla, April 1946 and 1947; 
Chiquimulilla, March 26, 1946, 
In literature: Retalhulen and Costa Grande (Salvin and Godman): San José 
(Dearborn); Naranjo, Becuintla (Lantz); Hacienda California, Quetzaltenango (Griscom from 
Anthony): Finca Cipres and Finca El Espino, Suchitepéquez (Griscom). 
Habits and Hunting.--Of this game bird, in El Salvador, Dickey and van Rossem wrote, 
“Unlike their larger relatives, chachas are not averse to cultivated tracts. In fact 
they may be said to favor the vicinity of small villages and isolated huts in preference 
to more primitive places. At Puerto del Triunfo they were much more common within a mile 
or two of the village than they were in the more distant jungle. The "backyard" of our 
quartere at that place--an abandoned hotel on the equally abandoned main street--was a 
dense patch of tall jungle with a thick undergrowth of coyol palm. This piece of perhaps 
twenty acres was surrounded on all sides by open fields andon three by occupied huts, yet 
there were at least ten chachas living there. Although considerable shooting was done, 
they never left the locality and every evening at dusk could be seen flying to roost in 
a big, spreading tree, Altogether it is apparent that chachas are entirely capable of 
taking care of themselves and will doubtless survive for many years after Crax and 
Penelope have become extinct locally. : 
"The preferred habitat is swampy jungle with coyol-palm undergrowth, although 
jn the hill country about Lakes Guija, Olomega, and Chanmico they took readily to thick, 
second-growth scrub and were almost as common there as in the coyol swamps. Chachalacas 
are partly arboreal, partly terrestrial, but escape is invariably by flight. The first 
flurry takes them, when surprised on the ground, into the thickest available tree, through 
whose smaller branches and protecting vine mat they slip to the farther side and then 
leave with surprising noiseless flight. 
"The loud, ringing calls of the males are most often heard in the early morning 
between dawn and sunrise. The first bird to begin will usually start every male in the 
neighborhood, and the woods for an hour or more resound with their crowing. The long, 
extraordinary trachea, the loop of which reaches nearly to the end of the sternum, produces 
a volume and power which remind one of the bugling of a crane, and a full-voiced old male 
can be heard a mile away. The three-or-four note crow or bugle, when softened by distance, 
has a ringing, semi-metallic quality. It is one of the longest-to-—be-remembered forest 
sounds, and ite recollection recalls more clearly than any other memory the palm swamps 
and mangrove-fringed lagoons where it was most often heard. 
"A female taken at Barra de Santiago, April 15, 1927, was laying. A nest found 
at Lake Guija, May 28, 1927, contained three white, and exceedingly rough-shelled eggs 
which were on the point of hatching. This nest was placed conspicuously thirty feet from 
the ground in a tall, slim sapling which rose above the surrounding brush. It was ina 
triple crotch, and in size, appearance, and structure was very similar to a crow's nest. 
The center was rather shallow, more saucer-like than cupped, and the eggs were lying on 
a lining of flattened leaves. Two half-grown young were taken July 26, 1912. Salvin and 
Godman, however, found fresh eggs and newly hatched young in March in western Guatemala 
and state that two eggs constitute the ordinary number." 
