高考◆英语◆全国題庫下載題庫

Along the river banks of the Amazon and the Orinoco there lives a bird that swims before it can fly, flies like a fat chicken, eats green leaves, has the stomach of a cow and has claws（爪）on its wings when young. They build their homes about 4.6 m above the river, an important feature （特征）for the safety of the young. It is called the hoatzin.

In appearance, the birds of both sexes look very much alike with brown on the back and cream and red on the underside. The head is small, with a large set of feathers on the top, bright red eyes, and blue skin. Its nearest relatives are the common bires, cuckoos. Its most striking feature, though is only found in the young.

Baby hoatzins have a claw on the leading edge of each wing and another at the end of each wing tip. Using these four claws, together with the beak(喙)，they can climb about in the bushes, looking very much like primitive bires must have done. When the young hoatzins have learned to fly, they lost their claws.

  the drier months between December and March hoatzins fly about the forest in groups of 20:00    , but in April, when the rainy season begins, they collect together in smaller living units of two seven birds for producing purposes.