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A sort of partridge peculiar to the Pampas, called TINAMOUS; black wood-hens; a species of plover, called TERU-TERU; yellow rays, and waterfowl with magnificent green plumage, rose in coveys. No quadrupeds, however, were visible, but Thalcave pointed to the long grass and thick brushwood, and gave his friends to understand they were lying there in concealment.
During one of these excursions, Gideon Spilett managed to get hold of two couples of living gallinaceae. They were birds with long, thin beaks, lengthened necks, short wings, and without any appearance of a tail. Herbert rightly gave them the name of tinamous, and it was resolved that they should be the first tenants of their future poultry-yard.
These were simply built of branches and divided into compartments, made ready for the expected guests. The first were the two tinamous, which were not long in having a number of young ones; they had for companions half a dozen ducks, accustomed to the borders of the lake.
They are from South America; the tinamous, from the warmer parts of the Continent; and the megapodius, of Australia and the Asiatic islands. It now remains for the visitor to notice a few of the paintings suspended in this compartment, above the wall cases. These paintings include a copy of Klingstad's portrait of Peter I. of Russia, three historical portraits, presented to the museum by the Rev.
It was indeed necessary that the birds should be close within reach of the cook, and no place appeared more favorable for the establishment of the said poultry-yard than that portion of the banks of the lake which was close to the old opening. Water-birds would prosper there as well as others, and the couple of tinamous taken in their last excursion would be the first to be domesticated.
Of the extreme tameness of the young rhea I have already spoken; I have also observed young tinamous, plovers, coots, &c., hatched by fowls, and found them as incapable of distinguishing friend from foe as the young of domestic birds. The only difference between the young of wild and tame is that the former are, as a rule, much more sprightly and active.
In the district where, as a boy, I chased and caught tinamous, and also chased ostriches, but failed to catch them, the continued presence of our two humble-bees, sucking the same flowers and making their nests in the same situations, has remained a puzzle to my mind. The site of the nest is usually a slight depression in the soil in the shelter of a cardoon bush.
The most characteristic pampean birds are the tinamous called partridges in the vernacular the rufous tinamou, large as a fowl, and the spotted tinamou, which is about the size of the English partridge.
The rhea possesses a unique habit, which is a puzzle to us, although it probably once had some significance namely, that of running, when hunted, with one wing raised vertically, like a great sail a veritable "ship of the wilderness." In every way it is adapted to the conditions of the pampas in a far greater degree than other pampean birds, only excepting the rufous and spotted tinamous.
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