CRAX, Lin. FNC. ALECTOR, Cuv. Hocco.
Bill long, thick, compressed at the sides, the ridge carinated, incurved towards the tip, the base covered with a simple cere, or gibbous ; nostrils lateral, placed in the cere, half covered, but open in front ; top of the head ornamented with revoluted feathers ; feet furnished with four toes, of which the three anterior are connected by a membrane at the base; tail broad, pendant, and coin posed of twelve feathers.
The hoccos are peaceful, social, and familiar birds, which live in numerous troops in the vast forests of South America, and are restless and shy only in the neighbourhood of inhabited districts, where they are constantly exposed to the arms of the fowler. By some authors they have been carelessly confounded with the turkey. They generally frequent mountainous situa tions, but always wooded, picking from the ground the fruits on which they subsist, perching on the loftiest trees, and breeding either on the branches or the ground, forming their nest of dry twigs and stalks of herbage, lined with leaves. The number of eggs varies from two to eight. The differences which have originated in do mestication, and the various provincial and local appella tions, have occasioned a nominal multiplication of the species. Several of them are furnished with a singularly contorted trachea.
C. alector, Lin. &c. Indian Cock, or Crested Curas sow. General colour of the body black, abdomen white, feathers on the crown curled and dark, cere yellow, temples naked, and variegated with black and yellow. Length nearly three feet. The crest, which the bird can elevate or depress at pleasure, varies in height according to age, and, in the adult, is composed of twisted black feathers. The back of the neck, breast, and tail, is en livened with green reflexions ; and the last is generally tips with white. The intermixture of this with other congenerous species gives rise to different hybrid varieties.
The crested curassows have greatly multiplied in the immense forests of Guiana ; but they are also met with in Brazil, and in the other warm countries of America. Hernandez and Nieremberg have related wonderful anec dotes of their familiarity, which are not wholly without foundation; for Sonnini has seen some of the undomesti cated individuals walking freely in the streets of Cayenne,. without seeming to be scared by the appearance of men, and repairing to particular houses where they received food. In their native solitudes, their sense of security having been tittle disturbed, the traveller may easily deal destruction among their flocks, as the noise of guns does not intimidate them ; but in the peopled regions of the country they are more suspicious, and have been greatly reduced in numbers. Their pace is slow and solemn, their flight heavy and noisy, and their cry hol low, as if concentrated within the body. They live on wild fruits, particularly those of Thoa urens, and on grain. Their eggs, which are deposited in the season of the rains, are from two to six, according to the age of the female, of a pure white, and of the size of those of the turkey. Individuals of this species are easily tamed, will readily associate with other fowls, and constitute a con siderable part of the food of the planters, their flesh being -white and delicate. They herd in flocks of about a dozen each, and roost on high trees during the night. They are frequently kept in our menageries; but they are unable to bear the dampness of the grass of our meadows, which renders their toes subject to rot off. Dr. Latham mentions an instance in which the whole of one foot was gone, and only part of one toe left on the other, before the bird ex pired.