Félix de Azara dice, sobre el nombre común de esta ave, que es el que por excelencia le dan los guaraníes porque “lo canta altísima y claramente”, y que significa se acabó la yerba -según anotó en el manuscrito-.
That translation is the most traditional, and there are even legends about it, but Arnoldo de Winkelled Bertoni gives him another meaning in his Guaraní Zoological vocabulary (1913);For him it is: herb populated water.
Azara had five copies of this species two adult males, one young, and two females.
The first adult male was killed by Don Juan Machain in the immediacy of the Cuartepotí stream on August 14, 1786;The young male later obtained him and kept him loose in his room for thirty days, until he fled;The female was bought on May 25 from the barbarians Payaguás;And, to the other specimens (male and female) he acquired them time after the previous.
He scored Azara in his manuscript that the Spaniards call this gallower bird;that they eat it with pleasure in Salmis or otherwise;And that is pretty.
Nomenclature
Sonnini argues that the characters that Azara recognizes of this bird in the great Poule d’Eau de Cayenne (Buffon, Tom.XV, pag.282.- Gallinula cayennensis [Aramides Cajane.
The Great Poule D’Eau de Cayenne (Aramides Cajanea) of Buffon is portrayed in the Illuminated Stamp number 352 of Martinet, with the name of Poule - d’Eu, by Cayenne.
It was Vieillot who in 1819 gave identity to the Ypacahá of Azara, which turned out to be a new species for science;And he appointed him Le Ralle Ypecaha, Rallus Ypecaha (Aramides Ypecaha), alluding to his song (Nouv.Dict.Hist.Nat., 28, P.568).
Customs
As for them, Azara tells us that Ypacahá does not fly, but very harassed, and then very little, almost like the chicken;that he inhabits the neighboring forests to bathed and streams, whose shores frequents -according to him;that does not rise to trees;that he only leaves his pens to eat in the afternoon and early morning;that always goes alone or to the most with another;And, who sings his name.Nothing knew about his nest.
In the manuscript he commented on the customs of a captive chicken (the young male who had for three months in his room), and in his points of another, which became an adult in the same condition.
From the first, he said: “He lived very cheerful, ate only flesh, and little grass, he used to quarrel and scare away a here, and an apass;He frequently waved the tail vertically, slept or folded his legs sometimes on the floor and sometimes on a chair where there was some clothes that warm him.I frequently took the piece of meat, and took it to big steps under my bed, and there I ate it.I drank raising the beak like chickens.When he was slowly suspending his foot, he raised like a horse of arms, and was very fast in the race.He wore a high ponytail so that the wings burned it below ”;And, from the second:
“At the house of Don Antonio Cruz Fernández, a doctor of Paraguay, they released a chicken in the corral, and of course ate pumpkin, bread, meat and everything, although I preferred the worms.When he was adult he fought with chickens and roosters;And when they were waiting for the Ypacahá, this, incomparably lighter, crouching his head, and getting through the cock of the rooster knocked him down, giving him without losing pecking moment in the belly and rabadilla before he got up.He knew when they were going to put the chickens, and followed them, throwing himself not far from them;And after they released the egg, the Ypacahá took it with the beak, and carried it away, where he carefully pierced him and drank without waste;so that an egg was not achieved in the house.It was impatient if the chickens took to put on, and threw them pecking from the ponyo, chasing them and chopping them with rage.The same thing practiced in the neighboring houses, because everything was and climbed to the roofs;so it was necessary to kill him for the complaints of the neighbors.You will undoubtedly do a lot of damage to the nests if you find them.It was not allowed to touch;But she entered all the rooms of the house, and if she found thimble, scissors or other Alhajilla, she wore and hid her in the herbs, and sometimes in the mud.I also caught the little mice, killed them and swallowed them entirely ”.
Characters
The Azara manuscript contains the description of the female and the following data on the male: black eye;Language with several points that seems spent;three previous fingers, the middle and greater with four joints, the exterior with five, the interior three, and the posterior two, all without membrane than one;acute nails, somewhat corvas and brown, the largest of eight lines;the older finger three inches scarce;The naked tarsus, equally an inch and a half of the leg, and all this squamous.
