Online Encyclopedia
Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.
GUAN
Online EncyclopediaEncyclopedia Home :: GRA-GUI
del.icio.us it!
|
GUAN , a word apparently first introduced into the ornithologist's vocabulary about 1743 by See also:Edwards,' who said that a See also:bird he figured (Nat. Hist. Uncommon Birds, p1. xiii.) was " so called in the See also:West Indies," and the name has hence been generally applied to all the members of the subfamily Penelopinae, which are distinguished from the kindred subfamily Cracinae or curassows by the broad postacetabular See also:area of the See also:pelvis as pointed out by See also:Huxley (Prot. Zool. Society, 1868, p. 297) as well as by their maxilla being wider than it is high, with its culmen depressed, the See also:crown feathered, and the nostrils See also:bare—the last two characters separating the Penelopinae from the Oreophasinae, which See also:form the third subfamily of the Cracidae,2 a See also:family belonging to that taxonomer's See also:division Peristeropodes of the See also:order Gallinae. The Penelopinae have been separated into seven genera, of which See also:Penelope and Ortalis, containing respectively about sixteen and nineteen See also:species, are the largest, the others numbering from one to three only. Into their See also:minute See also:differences it would be useless to enter: nearly all have the See also:throat bare of feathers, and from that of many of them hangs a wattle; but one form, Chamaepetes, has neither of these features, and Stegnolaema, though wattled, has the throat clothed. With few exceptions the guans are confined to the See also:South-See also:American See also:continent; one species of Penelope is however found in See also:Mexico (e.g. at See also:Mazatlan), Pipile cumanensis inhabits See also:Trinidad as well as the mainland, while three species of Ortalis occur in Mexico or See also:Texas, and one, which is also See also:common to See also:Venezuela, in See also:Tobago. Like curassows, guans are in See also:great measure of arboreal See also:habit. They also readily 1 Edwards also gives " quan " as an alternative spelling, and this may be nearer the See also:original form, since we find See also:Dampier in 1676 See also:writing (Voy. ii. pt. 2, p. 66) of what was doubtless an allied if not the same bird as the " quam." The species represented by Edwards does not seem to have been identified. 2 See the excellent Synopsis by Sclater and Salvin in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society for 187o (pp. 5(4-544), while further See also:information on the Cracinae was given by Sclater in the Transactions of the same society (ix. pp. 273-288, pls. Some additions have since been made to the knowledge of the family, but none of very great importance. become tame, but all attempts to domesticate them in the full sense of the word have wholly failed, and the cases in which they have even been induced to breed and the See also:young have been reared in confinement are very few. Yet it would seem that guans and curassows will interbreed with poultry (See also:Ibis, 1866, p. 24; See also:Bull. See also:Soc. See also:Imp. d'Acclimatation, 1868, p. 559; 1869, p. 357), and what is more extraordinary is that in Texas the hybrids between the chiacalacca (Ortalis vetula) and the domestic See also:fowl are asserted to be far See also:superior to See also:ordinary See also:game-cocks for fighting purposes. (A. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click, and select "copy." Then paste it into your website, email, or other HTML. Site content, images, and layout Copyright © 2006 - Net Industries, worldwide. |
|
|
[back] GUAM (Span. Guajan; Guahan, in the native Chamorro)... |
[next] GUANABACOA (an Indian name meaning " site of the wa... |