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GAYLORD PRINTED IN U.S.A.
THE NATURALIST IN LA PLATA
First Edition, Feb. 1892.

Second
Third
Fourth
Fifth
Sixth

”

”

”

”

2”

June 1892.
Jan. 1895.
June 1903.
Aug. I9g12.
March 1922.
 

 

 

RHEA, OR S. AMERICAN OSTRICH.

Frontispiece.
THE NATURALIST
IN LA PLATA

BY

W. H. HUDSON, F.Z.S.

JOINT AUTHOR OF “ARGENTINE ORNITHOLOGY ”’

 

ILLUSTRATED BY J. SMIT

NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON ®& CO.
woul
StL
224
HES
1

287085

All rights reserved
PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION

Tuis work was first published in February 1892,
reprinted in June of the same year, and a third
edition, with an appendix, printed in January 1895.
It has now been for some time out of print, and as
a demand for it still exists, the author and his present
publisher have been encouraged to issue this new and
cheaper edition. The letter-press and the drawings
in the text have been left as they were; the only
change is in the form of the book and the sub-
stitution of new plates for the old ones.

The following paragraphs appeared in the Preface
to former editions :—

“The plan I have followed in this work has been
to sift and arrange the facts I have gathered con-
cerning the habits of the animals best known to
me, preserving those only, which, in my judgment,
appeared to be worth recording. In some instances
a variety of subjects have linked themselves together
in my mind, and have been grouped under one
heading; consequently the scope of the work is
not indicated by the list of contents: this want
is, however, made good by the index.”

“Tt is seldom an easy matter to give a suitable
name to a book of this description. I am con-

scious that the one I have made choice of displays
vi Preface.

a lack of originality; also, that this kind of title
has been used hitherto for works constructed more
or less on the plan of the famous Naturalist on the
Amazons. After this apology, the reader on his
part, will readily admit that, in treating of the
Natural History of a district so well known and
often described as the southern portion of La Plata,
which has a temperate climate, and where nature
is neither exuberant nor grand, a personal narrative
would have seemed superfluous.”

“Of all animals, birds have perhaps afforded me
the most pleasure; but most of the fresh knowledge
I have been able to collect in this department is
contained in a larger work—Argentine Ornithology—
written in collaboration with Dr P. L. Sclater. As I
have not gone over any of the subjects dealt with
in that work, bird-life has not received more than
a fair share of attention in the present volume.”

W. BH

June 1903.
CONTENTS.

CHAPTER IT.

PAGE
THe Desert Pampas ‘ ‘ ‘ é ‘ 2 ‘ 1

CHAPTER II.

Tue Puma, on Lion or America . . ‘ : ; 31

CHAPTER III. .
A Wave or Lirz . 7 ; , ‘ ; ‘ » 59

CHAPTER IV.

Some Curious ANIMAL WeEaPons . ; é 5 . 69
CHAPTER V.

Frar in Birps : : , ‘ ; ; ‘ . 83
CHAPTER VI.

PARENTAL AND Earzty Instincts . ‘ . ‘ - 101

CHAPTER VII.

Tue Mepuitio SKUNK . ‘ 2 5 * ; - 116

CHAPTER VIII.

Mimicry anp WaRnina CoLours IN GRASSHOPPERS . 124

CHAPTER IX,

Dracon-FLY SToRMs i A ‘ ‘é : 3 . 130
viii Contents.

CHAPTER X,

MosquitoEs aND Parasites PROBLEMS 4 e

CHAPTER XI.

Humpuie-Bess AND OTHER Matters

CHAPTER XII.
A Noste Wasp : f : - j ‘i a ;

CHAPTER XIII.

Natoure’s NiGHT-LIGHTS . ; 2 3 ;

CHAPTER XIV.

Faots aND THOUGHTS ABOUT SPIDERS

CHAPTER XV.

Tus Deatu-reranine INstTINcT ‘i ‘ r ‘

CHAPTER XVI,

Hummine-Birps ‘ ‘ r i 3 .

CHAPTER XVII.

Tue Crestep SorEAMER . , P ) ‘ 3

CHAPTER XVIII.
THE WoopHEwrR Famity ‘ ‘i - . 2

CHAPTER XIX.
Music anp Danone in Nature. ; i

CHAPTER XX.

BioGRaAPHY OF THE VIZCACHA .

CHAPTER XXI.

Tur Dyine Hvuawnaco

PAGE

135

154

168

178

200

221

235

289

314
Contents.

CHAPTER XXII.

Tre Strance Instincrs oF Carre

CHAPTER XXIII.

Horse anp Man

CHAPTER XXIV.

Seen anp Lost

APPENDIX

INDEX

1x

PAGE

329

348

363

384

391
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE
Rhea, or S. American Ostrich . 2 . Frontispiece
White-banded Mocking-bird  . 3 : . Title-page
Coypt and young . ‘ ‘ : : ‘ 12
Carancho £ . . . . ‘i To face 24
Puma killed by Cow. a . a : ' 39
Puma. : ‘ ’ : To face 56
Armadillo killing ies : . 3 ; : 72
Wrestler Frog . ‘ - 7 é é 5 77
Ceratophrys ornata ; * ; . ‘ ; 80
Didelphys azare and young. ; . é . 102
Pampa Sheep. s : é z : 109
Doe safe-guarding young : . ‘ . To face 110
Skunk and Dog . ‘ : . 123
Ixodes ; before and after a Blood Diet : ‘ ‘ 142
Firewood-gatherer and Bird-fly : . : : 147
A Bee’s Revenge 7 : é s . : 165
Mygale fusca, threatening : , : . ‘ 191
Loddigesia mirabilis. : . : : 3 215
Crested Screamer ‘ * . . . ; 224
Some Woodhewers’ beaks . . ‘ , 239
Ovenbird and Oven 5 ‘i A ; . To face 256
Dance of Ypecaha Rails . ‘ ‘ . . : 267
Wing-display of Jacanas : . 5 , ‘i 268
Dance of Spur-winged Lapwings - ‘ . , 270
White-banded Mocking-bird . ‘ . . é 277
Vizcachas ; ‘ 3 i . ‘ : 290
Sentinel Huanaco ‘ . . é 5 To face 316
Gaucho . . . . é ‘ 350
A Lost Hosier: bine : i . ° . 367
Small Spine-tail and Nest é A 5 7 . 371
THE NATURALIST IN LA PLATA.

CHAPTER I.
THE DESERT PAMPAS,

Dorine recent years we have heard much about the
great and rapid changes now going on in the plants
and animals of all the temperate regions of the
globe colonized by Huropeans. These changes, if
taken merely as evidence of material progress, must
be a matter of rejoicing to those who are satisfied,
and more than satisfied, with our system of civiliza-
tion, or method of outwitting Nature by the removal
of all checks on the undue increase of our own
species. To one who finds a charm in things as
they exist in the unconquered provinces of Nature’s
dominions, and who, not being over-anxious to reach
the end of his journey, is content to perform it on
horseback, or in a waggon drawn by bullocks, it is
permissible to lament the altered aspect of the
earth’s surface, together with the disappearance of
numberless noble and beautiful forms, both of the
animal and vegetable kingdoms. For he cannot
find it in his heart to love the forms by which they
are replaced ; these are cultivated and domesticated,
and have only become useful to man at the cost of
2 The Naturalist in La Plata.

that grace and spirit which freedom and wildness
give. In numbers they are many—twenty-five
millions of sheep in this district, fifty millions in
that, a hundred millions in a third—but how few
are the species in place of those destroyed? and
when the owner of many sheep and much wheat
desires variety—for he possesses this instinctive
desire, albeit in conflict with and overborne by
the perverted instinct of destruction—what is there
left to him, beyond his very own, except the weeds
that spring up in his fields under all skies, ringing
him round with old-world monotonous forms, as
tenacious of their undesired union with him as the
rats and cockroaches that inhabit his house?

We hear most frequently of North America, New
Zealand, and Australia in this connection; but
nowhere on the globe has civilization “ written
strange defeatures’’ more markedly than on that
great area of level country called by English writers
the pampas, but by the Spanish more appropriately
La Pampa—from the Quichua word signifying open
space or country—since it forms in most part one
continuous plain, extending on its eastern border
from the river Parana, in latitude 32°, to the Pata-
gonian formation on the river Colorado, and com-
prising about two hundred thousand square miles of
humid, grassy country.

This district has been colonized by Europeans
since the middle of the sixteenth century; but
down to within a very few years ago immigration
was on too limited a scale to make any very great
change; and, speaking only of the pampean
country, the conquered territory was a long, thinly-
The Desert Pampas. 3

settled strip, purely pastoral, and the Indians, with
their primitive mode of warfare, were able to keep
back the invaders from the greater portion of their
ancestral hunting-grounds. Not twenty years ago
a ride of two hundred miles, starting from the
capital city, Buenos Ayres, was enough to place one
well beyond the furthest south-western frontier out-
post. In 1879 the Argentine Government deter-
mined to rid the country of the aborigines, or, at all
events, to break their hostile and predatory spirit
once for all; with the result that the entire area of
the grassy pampas, with a great portion of the
sterile pampas and Patagonia, has been made avail-
able to the emigrant. There is no longer anything
to deter the starvelings of the Old World from
possessing themselves of this new land of promise,
flowing, like Australia, with milk and tallow, if not
with honey; any emasculated migrant from a
Genoese or Neapolitan slum is now competent to
“‘ficht the wilderness’ out there, with his eight-
shilling fowling-piece and the implements of his
trade. The barbarians no longer exist to frighten
his soul with dreadful war cries ; they have moved
away to another more remote and shadowy region,
called in their own language Alhuemapt, and not
known to geographers. For the results so long and
ardently wished for have swiftly followed on General
Roca’s military expedition ; and the changes wit-
nessed during the last decade on the pampas exceed
in magnitude those which had been previously
effected by three centuries of occupation.

In view of this wave of change now rapidly
sweeping away the old order, with whatever beauty
4 The Naturalist in La Plata.

and grace it possessed, it might not seem inoppor-
tune at the present moment to give a rapid sketch,
from the field naturalist’s point of view, of the great
plain, as it existed before the agencies introduced
by European colonists had done their work, and as
it still exists in its remoter parts.

The humid, grassy, pampean country extends,
roughly speaking, half-way from the Atlantic Ocean
and the Plata and Parand rivers to the Andes, and
passes gradually into the “Monte Formation,” or
sterile pampa—a sandy, more or less barren district,
producing a dry, harsh, ligneous vegetation, princi-
pally thorny bushes and low trees, of which the
chafiar (Gurliaca decorticans) isthe most common ;
hence the name of ‘‘ Chafiar-steppe ”’ used by some
writers: and this formation extends southwards
down into Patagonia. Scientists have not yet been
able to explain why the pampas, with a humid
climate, and a soil exceedingly rich, have produced
nothing but grass, while the dry, sterile territories
on their north, west, and south borders have an
arborescent vegetation. Darwin’s conjecture that
the extreme violence of the pampero, or south-west
wind, prevented trees from growing, is now proved
to have been ill-founded since the introduction of
the Eucalyptus globulus; for this noble tree attains
to an extraordinary height on the pampas, and
exhibits there a luxuriance of foliage never seen in
Australia.

To this level area—my “ parish of Selborne,” or,
at all events, a goodly portion of it—with the sea
on one hand, and on the other the practically
infinite expanse of grassy desert—another sea, not
The Desert Pampas. 5

‘in vast fluctuations fixed,’ but in comparative
calm—I should like to conduct the reader in ima-
gination: a country all the easier to be imagined
on account of the absence of mountains, woods,
lakes, and rivers. There is, indeed, little to be
imagined—not even a sense of vastness; and
Darwin, touching on this point, in the Jowrnal of a
Naturalist, aptly says :—‘‘ At sea, a person’s eye
being six feet above the surface of the water, his
horizon is two miles and four-fifths distant. In
like manner, the more level the plain, the more
nearly does the horizon approacn within these
narrow limits; and this, in my opinion, entirely
destroys the grandeur which one would have
imagined that a vast plain would have possessed.”

I remember my first experience of a hill, after
having been always shut within “these narrow
limits.” It was one of the range of sierras near
Cape Corrientes, and not above eight hundred feet
high; yet, when I had gained the summit, I was
amazed at the vastness of the earth, as it appeared
to me from that modest elevation. Persons born
and bred on the pampas, when they first visit a
mountainous district, frequently experience a
sensation as of “a ball in the throat,’ which seems
to prevent free respiration.

In most places the rich, dry soil is occupied by a
coarse grass, three or four feet high, growing in
large tussocks, and all the year round of a deep
green; a few slender herbs and trefoils, with long,
twining stems, maintain a frail existence among
the tussocks; but the strong grass crowds out

most plants, and scarcely a flower relieves its
B
6 The Naturalist in La Plata.

uniform everlasting verdure. There are patches,
sometimes large areas, where it does not grow, and
these are carpeted by small creeping herbs of a
livelier green, and are gay in spring with flowers,
chiefly of the composite and papilionaceous kinds ;
and verbenas, scarlet, purple, rose, and white. On
moist or marshy grounds there are also several
lihes, yellow, white, and red, two or three flags, and
various other small flowers; but altogether the
flora of the pampas is the poorest in species of any
fertile district on the globe. On moist clayey
ground flourishes the stately pampa grass, Gynerium
argenteum, the spears of which often attain a height
of eight or nine feet. I have ridden through many
leagues of this grass with the feathery spikes high
as my head, and often higher. It would be im-
possible for me to give anything like an adequate
idea of the exquisite loveliness, at certain times and
seasons, of this queen of grasses, the chief glory of
the solitary pampa. Everyone is familiar with it in
cultivation; but the garden-plant has a sadly
decaying, draggled look at all times, and to my
mind, is often positively ugly with its dense wither-
ing mass of coarse leaves, drooping on the ground,
and bundle of spikes, always of the same dead
white or dirty cream-colour. Now colour—the
various ethereal tints that give a blush to its cloud-
like purity—is one of the chief beauties of this
grass on its native soil; and travellers who have
galloped across the pampas at a season of the year
when the spikes are dead, and white as paper or
parchment, have certainly missed its greatest charm.
The plant is social, and in some places where
The Desert Pampas. 7

scarcely any other kind exists it covers large areas
with a sea of fleecy-white plumes ; in late summer,
and in autumn, the tints are seen, varying from the
most delicate rose, tender and illusive as the blush
on the white under-plumage of some gulls, to purple
and violaceous. At no time does it look so perfect
as in the evening, before and after sunset, when
the softened light imparts a mistiness to the crowd-
ing plumes, and the traveller cannot help fancying
that the tints, which then seem richest, are caught
from the level rays of the sun, or reflected from the
coloured vapours of the afterglow.

The last occasion on which I saw the pampa
grass in its full beauty was at the close of a bright
day in March, ending in one of those perfect sunsets
seen only in the wilderness, where no lines of house
or hedge mar the enchanting disorder of nature,
and the earth and sky tints are in harmony. I had
been travelling all day with one companion, and for
two hours we had ridden through the matchless
grass, which spread away for miles on every side,
the myriads of white spears, touched with varied
colour, blending in the distance and appearing
almost like the surface of a cloud. Hearing a
swishing sound behind us, we turned sharply round,
and saw, not forty yards away in our rear, a party
of five mounted Indians, coming swiftly towards us:
but at the very moment we saw them their animals
came to a dead halt, and at the same instant the
five riders leaped up, and stood erect on their
horses’ backs. Satisfied that they had no intention
of attacking us, and were only looking out for
strayed horses, we continued watching them for
8 The Naturalist in La Plata.

some time, as they stood gazing away over the plain
in different directions, motionless and silent, like
bronze men on strange horse-shaped pedestals of
dark stone; so dark in their copper skins and long
black hair, against the far-off ethereal sky, flushed
with amber light; and at their feet, and all around,
the cloud of white and faintly-blushing plumes.
That farewell scene was printed very vividly on my
memory, but cannot be shown to another, nor could
it be even if a Ruskin’s pen or a Turner’s pencil
were mine; for the flight of the sea-mew is not
more impossible to us than the power to picture
forth the image of Nature in our souls, when she
reveals herself in one of those ‘‘ special moments”
which have “special grace” in situations where
her wild beauty has never been spoiled by man.

At other hours and seasons the general aspect of
the plain is monotonous, and in spite of the un-
obstructed view, and the unfailing verdure and
sunshine, somewhat melancholy, although never
sombre: and doubtless the depressed and melan-
choly feeling the pampa inspires in those who are
unfamiliar with it is due in a great measure to the
paucity of life, and to the profound silence. The
wind, as may well be imagined on that extensive
level area, is seldom at rest ; there, as in the forest,
it is a “bard of many breathings,”’ and the strings
it breathes upon give out an endless variety of
sorrowful sounds, from the sharp fitful sibilations
of the dry wiry grasses on the barren places, to the
long mysterious moans that swell and die in the tall
polished rushes of the marsh. It is also curious to
note that with a few exceptions the resident birds
The Desert Pampas. 9

are comparatively very silent, even those belonging
to groups which elsewhere are highly loquacious.
The reason of this is not far to seek. In woods
and thickets, where birds abound most, they are
continually losing sight of each other, and are only
prevented from scattering by calling often; while
the muffling effect on sound of the close foliage, to
which may be added a spirit of emulation where
many voices are heard, incites most species, especi-
ally those that are social, to exert their voices to
the utmost pitch in singing, calling, and screaming.
On the open pampas, birds, which are not compelled
to live concealed on the surface, can see each other
at long distances, and perpetual calling is not need-
ful: moreover, in that still atmosphere sound travels
far. As arule their voices are strangely subdued ;
nature’s silence has infected them, and they have
become silent by habit. This is not the case with
aquatic species, which are nearly all migrants from
noisier regions, and mass themselves in lagoons and
marshes, where they are all loquacious together. It
is also noteworthy that the subdued bird-voices,
some of which are exceedingly sweet and expressive,
and the notes of many of the insects and batrachians
have a great resemblance, and seem to be in accord
with the wolian tones of the wind in reeds and
grasses: a stranger to the pampas, even a
naturalist accustomed to a different fauna, will
often find it hard to distinguish between bird, frog,
and insect voices.

The mammalia is poor in species, and with the
single exception of the well-known vizcacha
(Lagostomus trichodactylus), there is not one of
10 The Naturalist in La Plata.

which it can traly be said that it is in any special
way the product of the pampas, or, in other words,
that its instincts are better suited to the conditions
of the pampas than to those of other districts. As
a fact, this large rodent inhabits a vast extent of
country, north, west, and south of the true pampas,
but nowhere is he so thoroughly on his native heath
as on the great grassy plain. There, to some extent,
he even makes his own conditions, like the beaver.
He lives in a small community of twenty or thirty
members, in a village of deep-chambered burrows,
all with their pit-like entrances closely grouped
together ; and as the village endures for ever, or for
an indefinite time, the earth constantly being brought
up forms a mound thirty or forty feet in diameter ;
and this protects the habitation from floods on low
or level ground. Again, he is not swift of foot, and
all rapacious beasts are his enemies; he also loves
to feed on tender succulent herbs and grasses, to
seek for which he would have to go far afield among
the giant grass, where his watchful foes are lying
in wait to seize him; he saves himself from this
danger by making a clearing all round his abode,
on which a smooth turf is formed; and here the
animals feed and have their evening pastimes in
comparative security: for when an enemy ap-
proaches, he is easily seen; the note of alarm is
sounded, and the whole company scuttles away to
their refuge. In districts having a different soil
and vegetation, as in Patagonia, the vizcachas’
curious, unique instincts are of no special advantage,
which makes it seem-probable that they have been
formed on the pampas.
Lhe Desert Pampas. It

How marvellous a thing it seems that the two
species of mammalians—the beaver and the vizcacha
—that most nearly simulate men’s intelligent actions
in their social organizing instincts, and their habita-
tions, which are made to endure, should belong to
an order so low down as the Rodents! And in the
case of the latter species, it adds to the marvel when
we find that the vizcacha, according to Water-
house, is the lowest of the order in its marsupial
affinities.

The vizcacha is the most common rodent on the
pampas, and the Rodent order is represented by the
largest number of species. The finest is the so-called
Patagonian hare—Dolichotis patagonica—a beauti-
ful animal twice as large as a hare, with ears shorter
and more rounded, and legs relatively much longer.
The fur is grey and chestnut brown. It is diurnal
in its habits, lives in kennels, and is usually met
with in pairs, or small flocks. Itis better suited to
a sterile country like Patagonia than to the grassy
humid plain; nevertheless it was found throughout
the whole of the pampas; but in a country where
the wisdom of a Sir William Harcourt was never
needed to slip the leash, this king of the Rodentia
is now nearly extinct.

A common rodent is the coypi—Myiopotamus
coypi—yellowish in colour with bright red incisors ;
a rat in shape, and as large as an otter. It is
aquatic, lives in holes in the banks, and where there
are no banks it makes a platform nest among the
rushes. Of an evening they are all out swimming
and playing in the water, conversing together in
their strange tones, which sound like the moans and
12 The Naturalist in La Plata.

cries of wounded and suffering men; and among
them the mother-coypti is seen with her progeny,
numbering eight or nine, with as many on her back
as she can accommodate, while the others swim after
her, crying for a ride.

With reference to this animal, which, as we have
seen, is prolific, a strange thing once happened in
Buenos Ayres. The coypa was much more abun-
dant fifty years ago than now, and its skin, which

 

Coypu.

has a fine fur under the long coarse hair, was largely
exported to Hurope. About that time the Dictator
Rosas issued a decree prohibiting the hunting of
the coypt. The result was that the animals in-
creased and multiplied exceedingly, and, abandoning
their aquatic habits, they became terrestrial and
migratory, and swarmed everywhere in search of
food. Suddenly a mysterious malady fell on them,
from which they quickly perished, and became
almost extinct.
The Desert Pampas. 13

What a blessed thing it would be for poor rabbit-
worried Australia if a similar plague should visit
that country, and fall on the right animal! On
the other hand, what a calamity if the infection,
wide-spread, incurable, and swift as the wind in its
course, should attack the too-numerous sheep !
And who knows what mysterious, unheard-of retri-
butions that revengeful deity Nature may not be
meditating in her secret heart for the loss of her °
wild four-footed children slain by settlers, and the
spoiling of her ancient beautiful order !

A small pampa rodent worthy of notice is the
Cavia australis, called cué in the vernacular from
its voice : a timid, social, mouse-coloured little crea-
ture, with a low gurgling language, like running
babbling waters; in habits resembling its domes-
tic pied relation the guinea pig. It loves to run on
clean ground, and on the pampas makes little rat-
roads all about its hiding-place, which little roads
tell a story to the fox, and such like; therefore the
little cavy’s habits, and the habits of all cavies, I
fancy, are not so well suited to the humid grassy
region as to other districts, with sterile ground to
run and play upon, and thickets in which to hide.

A more interesting animal is the Ctenomys
magellanica, a little less than the rat in size, with
a shorter tail, pale grey fur, and red incisors. It
is called tuco-tuco from its voice, and oculto from its
habits; for it is a dweller underground, and re-
quires a loose, sandy soil in which, like the mole, it
may swim beneath the surface. Consequently the
pampa, with its heavy, moist mould, is not the
tuco’s proper place; nevertheless, wherever there
14 The Naturalist in La Plata.

is a stretch of sandy soil, or a range of dunes, there
it is found living; not seen, but heard; for all day
long and all night sounds its voice, resonant and
loud, like a succession of blows from a hammer; as
if a company of gnomes were toiling far down
underfoot, beating on their anvils, first with strong
measured strokes, then with lighter and faster, and
with a swing and rhythm as if the little men were
beating in time to some rude chant unheard above
the surface. How came these isolated colonies of a
species so subterranean in habits, and requiring a
sandy soil to move in, so far from their proper dis-
trict—that sterile country from which they are
separated by wide, unsuitable areas? They cannot
perform long overland journeys like the rat. Perhaps
the dunes have travelled, carrying their little cattle
with them.

Greatest among the carnivores are the two cat-
monarchs of South America, the jaguar and puma.
Whatever may be their relative positions elsewhere,
on the pampas the puma is mightiest, being much
more abundant and better able to thrive than its
spotted rival. Versatile in its preying habits, its
presence on the pampa is not surprising; but pro-
bably only an extreme abundance of large mammalian
prey, which has not existed in recent times, could
have tempted an animal of the river and forest-
loving habits of the jaguar to colonize this cold,
treeless, and comparatively waterless desert. There
are two other important cats. The grass-cat, not
unlike Felis catus in its robust form and dark colour,
but a larger, more powerful animal, inexpressibly
savage in disposition. The second, Felis geoffroyi,
The Desert Pampas. 15

is a larger and more beautiful animal, coloured like
a leopard ; it is called wood-cat, and, as the name
would seem to indicate, is an intruder from wooded
districts north of the pampas.

There are two canines: one is Azara’s beautiful
grey fox-like dog, purely a fox in habits, and
common everywhere. The other is far more
interesting and extremely rare; it is called aguard,
its nearest ally being the aguard-guazt, the Canis
jubatus or maned wolf of naturalists, found
north of the pampean district. The aguard is
smaller and has no mane; it is like the dingo in
size, but slimmer and with a sharper nose, and has
a much brighter red colour. At night when camp-
ing out I have heard its dismal screams, but the
screamer was sought in vain; while from the
gauchos of the frontier I could only learn that it is
a harmless, shy, solitary animal, that ever flies to
remoter wilds from its destroyer, man. They offered
me a skin—what more could I want? Simple
souls! it was no more to me than the skin of a
dead dog, with long, bright red hair. Those who
love dead animals may have them in any number by
digging with a spade in that vast sepulchre of the
pampas, where perished the hosts of antiquity. I
love the living that are above the earth; and how
small a remnant they are in South America we
know, and now yearly becoming more precious as
it dwindles away.

The pestiferous skunk is universal; and there
are two quaint-looking weasels, intensely black in
colour, and grey on the back and flat crown. One,
the Galictis barbara, is a large bold animal that
16 The Naturalist in La Plata.

hunts in companies ; and when these long-bodied
creatures sit up erect, glaring with beady eyes,
grinning and chattering at the passer-by, they look
like little friars in black robes and grey cowls; but
the expression on their round faces is malignant
and bloodthirsty beyond anything in nature, and
it would perhaps be more decent to liken them to
devils rather than to humans.

On the pampas there is, strictly speaking, only
one ruminant, the Cervus campestris, which is
common. The most curious thing about this animal
is that the male emits a rank, musky odour, so
powerful that when the wind blows from it the
effluvium comes in nauseating gusts to the nostrils
from a distance exceeding two miles. It is really
astonishing that only one small ruminant should be
found on this immense grassy area, so admirably
suited to herbivorous quadrupeds, a portion of which
at the present moment affords sufficient pasture to
eighty millions of sheep, cattle, and horses. In La
Plata the author of The Mammoth and the Flood will
find few to quarrel with his doctrine.

Of Edentates there are four. The giant armadillo
does not range so far, and the delicate little pink
fairy armadillo, the truncated Chlamydophorus, is
a dweller in the sand-dunes of Mendoza, and has
never colonized the grassy pampas. The Tatusia
hybrida, called ‘little mule’’ from the length of its
ears, and the Dasypus tricinctus, which, when dis-
turbed, rolls itself into a ball, the wedge-shaped head
and wedge-shaped tail admirably fitting into the
deep-cut shell side by side; and the quirquincho
(Dasypus minutus), all inhabit the pampa, are
The Desert Pampas. 17

diurnal, and feed exclusively on insects, chiefly ants.
Wherever the country becomes settled, these three
disappear, owing to the dulness of their senses,
especially that of sight, and. to the diurnal habit,
which was an advantage to them, and enabled them
to survive when rapacious animals, which are
mostly nocturnal, were their only enemies. The
fourth, and most important, is the hairy armadillo,
with habits which are in strange contrast to those
of its perishing congeners, and which seem to mock
many hard-and-fast rules concerning animal life.
It is omnivorous, and will thrive on anything from
grass to flesh, found dead and in all stages of decay,
or captured by means of its own strategy. Further-
more, its habits change to suit its conditions: thus,
where nocturnal carnivores are its enemies, it is
diurnal; but where man appears as a chief perse-
cutor, it becomes nocturnal. It is much hunted for
its flesh, dogs being trained for the purpose ; yet it
actually becomes more abundant as population
increases in any district ; and, if versatility in habits
or adaptiveness can be taken as a measure of intelli-
gence, this poor armadillo, a survival of the past, so
old on the earth as to have existed contempora-
neously with the giant glyptodon, is the superior of
the large-brained cats and canines.

To finish with the mammalia, there are two
interesting opossums, both of the genus Didelphys,
but in habits as wide apart as cat from otter. One
of these marsupials appears so much at home on
the plains that I almost regret having said that the
vizcacha alone gives us the idea of being in its
habits the product of the pampas. This animal—
18 The Naturalist in La Plata.

Didelphys crassicaudata—has a long slender, wedge-
shaped head and body, admirably adapted for push-
ing through the thick grass and rushes; for it is
both terrestrial and aquatic, therefore well suited
to inhabit low, level plains liable to be flooded. On
dry land its habits are similar to those of a weasel ;
in lagoons, where it dives and swims with great
ease, it constructs a globular nest suspended from
the rushes. The fur is soft, of a rich yellow, reddish
above, and on the sides and under surfaces varying
in some parts to orange, in others exhibiting beau-
tiful copper and terra-cotta tints. These lovely
tints and the metallic lustre soon fade from the fur,
otherwise this animal would be much sought after
in the interests of those who love to decorate them-
selves with the spoils of beautiful dead animals—
beast and bird. The other opossum is the black
and white Didelphys azare; and it is indeed
strange to find this animal on the pampas, although
its presence there is not so mysterious as that of
the tuco-tuco. It shuffles along slowly and awk-
wardly on the ground, but is a great traveller
nevertheless. Tschudi met it mountaineering on
the Andes at an enormous altitude, and, true to its
lawless nature, it confronted me in Patagonia, where
the books say no marsupial dwells. In every way
it is adapted to an arboreal life, yet it is everywhere
found on the level country, far removed from the
conditions which one would imagine to be necessary
to its existence. For how many thousands of years
has this marsupial been a dweller on the plain, all
its best faculties unexercised, its beautiful grasping
hands pressed to the ground, and its prehensile tail
The Desert Pampas. 19

dragged like an idle rope behind it! Yet, if one is
brought to a tree, it will take to it as readily as a
duck to water, or an armadillo to earth, climbing
up the trunk and about the brauches with a monkey-
like agility. How reluctant Nature seems in some
cases to undo her own work! How long she will
allow a specialized organ, with the correlated
instinct, to rest without use, yet ready to flash forth
on the instant, bright and keen-edged, as in the
ancient days of strife, ages past, before peace came
to dwell on earth !

The avi-fauna is relatively much richer than the
mammalia, owing to the large number of aquatic
species, most of which are migratory with their
*“‘ breeding” or “ subsistence-areas ” on the pampas.
In more senses than one they constitute a “ floating
population,” and their habits have in no way been
modified by the conditions of the country. The
order, including storks, ibises, herons, spoonbills,
and flamingoes, counts about eighteen species; and
the most noteworthy birds init are two great ibises
nearly as large as turkeys, with mighty resonant
voices. The duck order is very rich, numbering at
least twenty species, including two beautiful upland
geese, winter visitors from Magellanic lands, and
two swans, the lovely black-necked, and the pure
white with rosy bill. Of rails, or ralline birds,
there are ten or twelve, ranging from a small
spotted creature no bigger than a thrush to some
large majestic birds. One is the courlan, called
“crazy widow” from its mourning plumage and
long melancholy screams, which on still evenings
may be heard a league away. Another is the
20 The Naturalist in La Plata.

graceful variegated ypicaha, fond of social gatherings,
where the birds perform a dance and make the
desolate marshes resound with their insane human-
like voices. A smaller kind, Porphyriops melanops,
has a night-cry like a burst of shrill hysterical
laughter, which has won for it the name of “ witch ;”
while another, Rallus rythyrhynchus, is called
“little donkey”’ from its braying cries. Strange
eerie voices have all these birds. Of the remaining
aquatic species, the most important is the spur-
winged crested screamer; a noble bird as large as
a swan, yet its favourite pastime is to soar upwards
until it loses itself to sight in the blue ether, whence
it pours forth its resounding choral notes, which
reach the distant earth clarified, and with a rhythmic
swell and fall as of chiming bells. It also sings by
night, “ counting the hours,” the gauchos say, and
where they have congregated together in tens of
thousands the mighty roar of their combined voices
produces an astonishingly grand effect.

The largest aquatic order is that of the Limicole
—snipes, plover, and their allies—which has about
twenty-five species. The vociferous spur-winged
lapwing ; the beautiful black and white stilt; a true
snipe, and a painted snipe, are, strictly speaking,
the only residents; and it is astonishing to find,
that, of the five-and-twenty species, at least thirteen
are visitors from North America, several of them
having their breeding-places quite away in the
Arctic regions. This is one of those facts concern-
ing the annual migration of birds which almost
stagger belief; for among them are species with
widely different habits, upland, marsh and sea-shore
Lhe Desert Pampas. 21

birds, and in their great biannual journey they pass
through a variety of climates, visiting many countries
where the conditions seem suited to their require-
ments. Nevertheless, in September, and even as
early as August, they begin to arrive on the pampas,
the golden plover often still wearing his black
nuptial dress ; singly and in pairs, in small flocks,
and in clouds they come—curlew, godwit, plover,
tatler, tringa—piping the wild notes to which the
Greenlander listened in June, now to the gaucho
herdsman on the green plains of La Plata, then to
the wild Indian in his remote village; and soon,
further south, to the houseless huanaco-hunter in
the grey wilderness of Patagonia.

Here is a puzzle for ornithologists. In summer
on the pampas we have a godwit—Limosa hudsonica ;
in March it goes north to breed; later in the
season flocks of the same species arrive from the
south to winter on the pampas. And besides this
godwit, there are several other North American
species, which have colonies in the southern hemi-
spere, with a reversed migration and breeding
season. Why do these southern birds winter so far
south P Do they really breed in Patagonia? If so,
their migration is an extremely limited one com-
pared with that of the northern birds—seven or
eight hundred miles, on the outside, in one case,
against almost as many thousands of miles in the
other. Considering that some species which mi-
grate as far south as Patagonia breed in the Arctic
regions as far north as latitude 82°, and probably
higher still, it would be strange indeed if none of

the birds which winter in Patagonia and on the
c
22 The Naturalist in La Plata.

pampas were summer visitors to that great austral
continent, which has an estimated area twice as
large as that of Europe, and a climate milder than
the arctic one. The migrants would have about
six hundred miles of sea to cross from Tierra del
Fuego; but we know that the golden plover and
other species, which sometimes touch at the Ber-
mudas when travelling, fly much further than that
without resting. The fact that acommon Argentine
titlark, a non-migrant and a weak flyer, has been
met with at the South Shetland Islands, close to
the antarctic continent, shows that the journey
may be easily accomplished by birds with strong
flight; and that even the winter climate of that
unknown land is not too severe to allow an acci-

dental colonist, like this small delicate bird, to...

survive. The godwit, already mentioned, has been
observed in flocks at the Falkland Islands in May,
that is, three months after the same species had
taken its autumal departure from the neighbouring
mainland. Can it be believed that these’ late
visitors to the Falklands were breeders in Patagonia,
and had migrated east to winter in so bleak a
region? It is far more probable that they came
from the south. Officers of sailing ships beating
round Cape Horn might be able to settle this ques-
tion definitely by looking out, and listening at
night, for flights of birds, travelling north from
about the first week in January to the end of
February ; and in September and October travel-
ling south. Probably not fewer than a dozen species
of the plover order are breeders on the great austral
continent; also other aquatic birds—ducks and
The Desert Pampas. 22

geese; and many Passerine birds, chiefly of the
Tyrant family.

Should the long projected Australasian expedition
to the South Polar regions ever be carried to a
successful issue, there will probably be important
results for ornithology, in spite of the astounding
theory which has found a recent advocate in Canon
Tristram, that all life originated at the North Pole,
whence it spread over the globe, but never succeeded
in crossing the deep sea surrounding the antarctic
continent, which has consequently remained till now
desolate, “‘a giant ash (and ice) of death.” Nor
is it unlikely that animals of a higher class than
birds exist there; and the discovery of new mam-
malians, differing in type from those we know,
would certainly be glad tidings to most students of
nature.

Land birds on the pampas are few in species and
in numbers. This may be accounted for by the
absence of trees and other elevations on which birds
prefer to roost and nest; and by the scarcity of
food. Insects are few in dry situations; and the
large perennial grasses, which occupy most of the
ground, yield a miserable yearly harvest of a few
minute seeds; so that this district is a poor one
both for soft and hard billed birds. Hawks of
several genera, in moderate numbers, are there, but
generally keep to the marshes. Hagles and vultures
are somewhat unworthily represented by carrion-
hawks (Polyboring) ; the lordly carancho, almost
eagle-like in size, black and crested, with a very
large, pale blue, hooked beak—his battle axe: and
bis humble follower and jackal, the brown and
24 The Naturalist in La Plata.

harrier-like chimango. These nest on the ground,
are versatile in their habits, carrion-eaters, also
killers on their own account, and, like wild dogs,
sometimes hunt in bands, which gives them an
advantage. They are the unfailing attendants of
all flesh-hunters, human or feline; and also furiously
pursue and persecute all eagles and true vultures
that venture on that great sea of grass, to wander
thereafter, for ever lost and harried, “the Hagars
and Ishmaels of their kind.”

The owls are few and all of wide-ranging species.
The most common is the burrowing-owl, found in
both Americas. Not a retiring ow] this, but all day
long, in cold and in heat, it stands exposed at the
mouth of its kennel, or on the vizcacha’s mound,
staring at the passer-by with an expression of grave
surprise and reprehension in its round yellow eyes;
male and female invariably together, standing stiff
and erect, almost touching—of all birds that pair
for life the most Darby and Joan like.

Of the remaining land birds, numbering about
forty species, a few that are most attractive on
account of their beauty, engaging habits, or large
size, may be mentioned here. On the southern por-
tion of the pampas the military starling (Sturnella)
is found, and looks like the European starling, with
the added beauty of a scarlet breast: among resi-
dent pampas birds the only one with a touch of
brilliant colouring. It has a pleasing, careless song,
uttered on the wing, and in winter congregates in
great flocks, to travel slowly northwards over the
plains. When thus travelling the birds observe a
kind of order, and the flock feeding along the
 

 

I

 

 

Carancho,
The Desert Pampas. 25

ground shows a very extended front—a representa-
tion in bird-life of the ‘‘ thin red line ”’—and advances
by the hindmost birds constantly flying over the
others and alighting in the front ranks.

Among the tyrant-birds are several species of the
beautiful wing-banded genus, snow-white in colour.
with black on the wings and tail: these are extreme-
ly graceful birds, and strong flyers, and in desert
places, where man seldom intrudes, they gather to
follow the traveller, calling to each other with low
whistling notes, and in the distance look like white
flowers as they perch on the topmost stems of the
tall bending grasses.

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. Their habits are identical : both
lay eggs of a beautiful wine-purple colour, and in
both species the young acquire the adult plumage
and power of flight when very small, and fly better
than the adults. They have small heads, slender
curved beaks, unfeathered legs and feet, and are
tailless; the plumage is deep yellowish, marked
with black and brown above. They live concealed,
skulking like rails through the tall grass, fly reluc-
tantly, and when driven up, their flight is exceed-
ingly noisy and violent, the bird soon exhausting it-
self. They are solitary, but many live in proximity,
frequently calling to each other with soft plaintive
voices. The evening call-notes of the larger bird
are flute-like in character, and singularly sweet and

expressive.
26 The Naturalist in La Plata.

The last figure to be introduced into this sketch
—which is not a catalogue—is that of the Rhea.
Glyptodon, Toxodon, Mylodon, Megatherium, have
passed away, leaving no descendants, and only pigmy
representatives if any; but among the feathered
inhabitants of the pampa the grand archaic ostrich
of America survives from a time when there were
also yriants among the avians. Vain as such efforts
usually are, one cannot help trying to imagine some-
thing of the past history of this majestic bird, before
man came to lead the long chase now about to end
so mournfully. Its fleetness, great staying powers,
and beautiful strategy when hunted, make it seem
probable that it was not without pursuers, other
than the felines, among its ancient enemies, long-
winded and tenacious of their quarry; and these
were perhaps of a type still represented by the
wolf or hound-like aguara and aguara-guazu. It
might be supposed that when almost all the larger
forms, both mammal and bird, were overtaken by
destruction, and when the existing rhea was on the
verge of extinction, these long-legged swift canines
changed their habits and lost their bold spirit,
degenerating at last into hunters of small birds and
mammals, on which they are said to live.

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. Its
Lhe Desert Pampas. 27

commanding stature gives it a wide horizon; and
its dim, pale, bluish-grey colour assimilates to that
of the haze, and renders it invisible at even a mode-
rate distance. Its large form fades out of sight
mysteriously, and the hunter strains his eyes in vain
to distinguish it on the blue expanse. Its figure
and carriage have a quaint majestic grace, somewhat
unavian in character, and peculiar to itself. Theré
are few more strangely fascinating sights in nature
than that of the old black-necked cock bird, stand-
ing with raised agitated wings among the tall plumed
grasses, and calling together his scattered hens
with hollow boomings and long mysterious suspira-
tions, as if a wind blowing high up in the void sky
had found a voice. Rhea-hunting with the bolas,
on a horse possessing both speed and endurance,
and trained to follow the bird in all his quick
doublings, is unquestionably one of the most fasci-
nating forms of sport ever invented by man. The
quarry has even more than that fair chance of
escape, without which all sport degenerates into
mere butchery, unworthy of rational beings ; more-
over, in this unique method of hunting the ostrich
the capture depends on a preparedness for all the
shifts and sudden changes of course practised by
the bird when closely followed, which is like instinct
or intuition; and, finally, in a dexterity in casting
the bolas at the right moment, with a certain aim,
which no amount of practice can give to those who
are not to the manner born.

This ‘wild mirth of the desert,’ which the gaucho
has known for the last three centuries, is now pass-
ing away, for the rhea’s fleetness can no longer
28 The Naturalist in La Plata.

avail him. He may scorn the horse and his rider,
what time he lifts himself up, but the cowardly
murderous methods of science, and a systematic
war of extermination, have left him no chance.
And with the rhea go the flamingo, antique and
splendid; and the swans in their bridal plumage ;
and the rufous tinamou—sweet and mournful melo-
dist of the eventide ; and the noble crested screamer,
that clarion-voiced watch-bird of the night in the
wilderness. These, and the other large avians, to-
gether with the finest of the mammalians, will
shortly be lost to the pampas utterly as the great
bustard is to England, and as the wild turkey and
bison and many other species will shortly be lost to
North America. What a wail there would be in the
world if a sudden destruction were to fall on the
accumulated art-treasures of the National Gallery,
and the marbles in the British Museum, and the
contents of the King’s Library—the old prints and
medieval illuminations! And these are only the
work of human hands and brains—impressions of
individual genius on perishable material, immortal
only in the sense that the silken cocoon of the dead
moth 1s so, because they continue to exist and shine
when the artist’s hands and brain are dust :—and
man has the long day of life before him in which to
do again things like these, and better than these, if
there is any truth in evolution. But the forms of
life in the two higher vertebrate classes are Nature’s
most perfect work; and the life of even a single
species is of incalculably greater value to mankind,
for what it teaches and would continue to teach,
than all the chiselled marbles and painted canvases
The Desert Pampas. 29

the world contains; though doubtless there are
many persons who are devoted to art, but blind to
some things greater than art, who will set me down
as a Philistine for sayingso. And, above all others,
we should protect and hold sacred those types,
Nature’s masterpieces, which are first singled out
for destruction on account of their size, or splendour,
or rarity, and that false detestable glory which is
accorded to their most successful slayers. In
ancient times the spirit of life shone brightest in
these; and when others that shared the earth with
them were taken by death they were left, being
more worthy of perpetuation. Like immortal
flowers they have drifted down to us on the ocean of
time, and their strangeness and beauty bring to our
imaginations a dream and a picture of that unknown
world, immeasurably far removed, where man was
not: and when they perish, something of gladness
goes out from nature, and the sunshine loses some-
thing of its brightness. Nor does their loss affect
us and our times only. The species now being
exterminated, not only in South America but every-
where on the globe, are, so far as we know, un-
touched by decadence. They are links in a chain,
and branches on the tree of life, with their roots in
a past inconceivably remote ; and but for our action
they would continue to flourish, reaching outward
to an equally distant future, blossoming into higher
and more beautiful forms, and gladdening innumer-
able generations of our descendants. But we think
nothing of all this: we must give full scope to our
passion for taking life, though by so doing we “ruin
the great work of time ;’’ not in the sense in which
30 The Naturalist un La Plata.

the poet used those words, but in one truer, and
wider, and infinitely sadder. Only when this sport-
ing rage has spent itself, when there are no longer
any animals of the larger kinds remaining, the loss
we are now inflicting on this our heritage, in which
we have a life-interest only, will be rightly appreci-
ated. It is hardly to be supposed or hoped that
posterity will feel satisfied with our monographs of
extinct species, and the few crumbling bones and
faded feathers, which may possibly survive half a
dozen centuries in some happily-placed museum.
On the contrary, such dreary mementoes will only
serve to remind them of their loss; and if they
remember us at all, it will only be to hate our
memory, and our age—this enlightened, scientific,
humanitarian age, which should have for a motto
‘“‘ Let us slay all noble and beautiful things, for to-
morrow we die.”
CHAPTER II.
TIE PUMA, OR LION OF AMERIOA.

Tae Puma has been singularly unfortunate in its
biographers. Formerly it often happened that
writers were led away by isolated and highly exag-
gerated incidents to attribute very shining quali-
ties to their favourite animals; the lion of the Old
World thus came to be regarded as brave and
magnanimous above all beasts of the ficld—the
Bayard of the four-footed kind, a reputation which
these prosaic and sceptical times have not suffered
it to keep. Precisely the contrary has happened
with the puma of literature; for, although to those
personally acquainted with the habits of this lesser
lion of the New World it is known to possess a
marvellous courage and daring, it is nevertheless
always spoken of in books of natural history as the
most pusillanimous of the larger carnivores. It
does not attack man, and Azara is perfectly correct
when he affirms that it never hurts, or threatens to
hurt, man or child, even when it finds them sleep-
ing. This, however, is not a full statement of the
facts; the puma will not even defend itself against
man. How natural, then, to conclude that it is too
timid to attack a human being, or to defend itself,
but scarcely philosophical; for even the most
cowardly carnivores we know—dogs and hyenas,
33 The Naturalist tn La Plata.

for instance—will readily attack a disabled or
sleeping man when pressed by hunger; and when
driven to desperation ho animal is too small or too
feeble to make a show of resistance. In such acase
“even the armadillo defends itself,’ as the gaucho
proverb says. Besides, the conclusion is in contra-
diction to many other well-known facts. Putting
aside the puma’s passivity in the presence of man,
it is a bold hunter that invariably prefers large to
small game; in desert places killing peccary, tapir,
ostrich, deer, huanaco, &c., all powerful, well-armed,
or swift animals. Huanaco skeletons seen in
Patagonia almost invariably have the neck dis-
located, showing that the puma was the executioner.
Those only who have hunted the huanaco on the
sterile plains and mountains it inhabits know how
wary, keen-scented, and fleet of foot it is. I
once spent several weeks with a surveying party
in a district where pumas were very abundant, and
saw not less than half a dozen deer every day,
freshly killed in most cases, and all with dislocated
necks. Where prey is scarce and difficult to capture,
the puma, after satisfying its hunger, invariably
conceals the animal it has killed, covering it over
carefully with grass and brushwood; these deer,
however, had all been left exposed to the caracaras
and foxes after a portion of the breast had been
eaten, and in many cases the flesh had not been
touched, the captor having satisfied itself with
sucking the blood. It struck me very forcibly that
the puma of the desert pampas is, among mammals,
like the peregrine falcon of the same district among
birds; for there this wide-ranging raptor oniy
The Puma, or Lion of America. 33

attacks comparatively large birds, and, after fastidi-
ously picking a meal from the flesh of the head and
neck, abandons the untouched body to the polybori
and other hawks of the more ignoble sort.

In pastoral districts the puma is very destructive
to the larger domestic animals, and has an extra-
ordinary fondness for horseflesh. This was first
noticed by Molina, whose Natural History of Chili
was written a century anda halfago. In Patagonia
IT heard on all sides that it was extremely difficult
to breed horses, as the colts were mostly killed by
the pumas. A native told me that on one occasion,
while driving his horses home through the thicket, a
puma sprang out of the bushes on to a colt following
behind the troop, killing it before his eyes and not
more than six yards from his horse’s head. In this
instance, my informant said, the puma alighted
directly on the colt’s back, with one fore foot
grasping its bosom, while with the other it seized
the head, and, giving it a violent wrench, dislocated
the neck. The colt fell to the earth as if shot, and
he affirmed that it was dead before it touched the
ground.

Naturalists have thought it strange that the
horse, once common throughout America, should
have become extinct over a continent apparently so
well suited to it and where it now multiplies so
greatly. As a fact wherever pumas abound the
wild horse of the present time, introduced from
Europe, can hardly maintain its existence. Formerly
in many places horses ran wild and multiplied to an
amazing extent, but this happened, I believe, only
in districts where the puma was scarce or had
34 The Naturalist in La Plata.

already been driven out by man. My own ex-
perience is that on the desert pampas wild horses
are exceedingly scarce, and from all accounts it
is the same throughout Patagonia.

Next to horseflesh sheep is preferred, and where
the puma can come at a flock, he will not trouble
himself to attack horned cattle. In Patagonia
especially I found this to be the case. I resided
for some time at an estancia close to the town of
El Carmen, on the Rio Negro, which during my
stay was infested by a very bold and cunning
puma. To protect the sheep from his attacks an
enclosure was made of upright willow-poles fifteen
feet long, while the gate, by which he would have
to enter, was close to the house and nearly six
feet high. In spite of the difficulties thus put in
the way, and of the presence of several large dogs,
also of the watch we kept in the hope of shooting
him, every cloudy night he came, and after killing
one or more sheep got safely away. One dark
night he killed four sheep; I detected him in the
act, and going up to the gate, was trying to make
out his invisible form in the gloom as he flitted
about knocking the sheep over, when suddenly he
leaped clear over my head and made his escape,
the bullets I sent after him in the dark failing to
hit him. Yet at this place twelve or fourteen calves,
belonging to the milch cows, were every night shut
into a small brushwood pen, at a distance from the
house where the enemy could easily have destroyed
every one of them. When I expressed surprise at
this arrangement, the owner said that the puma was
not fond of calves’ flesh, and came only for the
The Puma, or Lion of America. 35

sheep. Frequently after his nocturnal visits we
found, by tracing his footprints in the loose sand,
that he had actually used the calves’ pen as a
place of concealment while waiting to make his
attack on the sheep.

The puma often kills full-grown cows and horses,
but exhibits a still greater daring when attacking
the jaguar, the largest of American carnivores,
although, compared with its swift, agile enemy, as
heavy as a rhinoceros, Azara states that it is
generally believed in La Plata and Paraguay that
the puma attacks and conquers the jaguar; but he
did not credit what he heard, which was not strange,
since he had already set the puma down as a
cowardly animal, because it does not attempt to
harm man or child. Nevertheless, it is well known
that where the two species inhabit the same dis-
trict they are at enmity, the puma being the per-
sistent persecutor of the jaguar, following and
harassing it as atyrant-bird harasses an eagle or
hawk, moving about it with such rapidity as to
confuse it, and, when an opportunity occurs,
springing upon its back and inflicting terrible
wounds with teeth and claws. Jaguars with scarred
backs are frequently killed, and others, not long
escaped from their tormentors, have been found
so greatly lacerated that they were easily overcome
by the hunters.

In Kingsley’s American Standard Natural His-
tory, it is stated that the puma in North Cali-
fornia has a feud with the grizzly bear similar to
that of the southern animal with the jaguar. In
its encounter with the grizzly it is said to be always

D
a6 The Naturalist in La Plata.

the victor; and this is borne out by the finding
of the bodies of bears, which have evidently
perished in the struggle.

How strange that this most cunning, bold, and
bloodthirsty of the Felide, the persecutor of the
jaguar and the scourge of the ruminants in the
regions it inhabits, able to kill its prey with the
celerity of a rifle bullet, never attacks a human
being! Even the cowardly, carrion-feeding dog
will attack a man when it can do so with impunity ;
but in places where the puma is the only large
beast of prey, it is notorious that it is there per-
fectly safe for even a small child to go out and
sleep on the plain. At the same time it will not
fly from man (though the contrary is always stated
in books of Natural History) except in places where
it is continually persecuted. Nor is this all: it
will not, as a rule, even defend itself against man,
although in some rare instances it has been known
to do so.

The mysterious, gentle instinct of this ungentle
species, which causes the gauchos of the pampas
to name it man’s friend—‘“‘ amigo del cristiano ’’—
has been persistently ignored by all travellers and
naturalists who have mentioned the puma. They
have thus made it a very incongruous creature,
strong enough to kill a horse, yet so cowardly
withal that it invariably flies from a human being—
even from a sleeping child! Possibly its real re-
putation was known to some of those who have
spoken about it; if so, they attributed what they
heard to the love of the marvellous and the ro-
mantic, natural to the non-scientific mind; or else
The Puma, or Lion of America. 37

preferred not to import into their writings matter
which has so great a likeness to fable, and might
have the effect of imperilling their reputation for
sober-mindedness.

It is, however, possible that the singular instinct
of the southern puma, which is unique among
animals in a state of nature, is not possessed by the
entire species, ranging as it does over a hundred
degrees: of latitude, from British North America to
Tierra del Fuego. The widely different conditions
of life in the various regions it inhabits must
necessarily have caused some divergence. Con-
cerning its habits in the dense forests of the Ama-
zonian region, where it must have developed special
instincts suited to its semi-arboreal life, scarcely
anything has been recorded. Hveryone is, however,
familiar with the dreaded cougar, catamount, or
panther—sometimes called “ painter’”—of North
American literature, thrilling descriptions of en-
counters with this imaginary man-eating monster
being freely scattered through the backwoods or
border romances, many of them written by authors
who have the reputation of being true to nature.
It may be true that this cougar of a cold climate
did occasionally attack man, or, as it is often
stated, follow him in the forest with the intention
of springing on him unawares; but on this point
nothing definite will ever be known, as the pioneers
and hunters of the past were only anxious to shoot
the cougar and not to study its instinct and dis-
position. It is now many years since Audubon
and Bachman wrote, “ This animal, which has ex-
cited so much terror in the minds of the ignorant
38 The Naturalist tn La Plata.

and timid, has been uearly exterminated in all
the Atlantic States, and we do not recollect a
single well-authenticated instance where any hunter’s
life fell a sacrifice in a cougar hunt.” It might be
added, I believe, that no authentic instance has been
recorded of the puma making an unprovoked attack
on any human being. In South America also the
traveller in the wilderness is sometimes followed by
apuma; but he would certainly be very much
surprised if told that it follows with the intention
of springing on him unawares and devouring his
flesh.

I have spoken of the comparative ease with
which the puma overcomes even large animals,
comparing it in this respect with the peregrine
falcon ; but all predacious species are hable to fre-
quent failures, sometimes to fatal mishaps, and even
the cunning, swift-killing puma is no exception, Its
attacks are successfully resisted by the ass, which
does not, like the horse, lose his presence of mind,
but when assaulted thrusts his head well down be-
tween its fore-legs and kicks violently until the
enemy is thrown or driven off. Pigs, when in
large herds, also safely defy the puma, massing
themselves together for defence in their well-known
manner, and presenting a serried line of tusks to
the aggressor. During my stay in Patagonia a
puma met its fate in a manner go singular that the
incident caused considerable sensation among the
settlers on the Rio Negro at the time. A man
named Linares, the chief of the tame Indians settled
in the neighbourhood of El Carmen, while riding
near the river had his curiosity aroused by the
The Puma, or Lion of America. 39

appearance and behaviour of a young cow standing
alone in the grass, her head, armed with long and
exceedingly sharp horns, much raised, and watching
his approach in a manner which betokened a state
of dangerous excitement. She had recently dropped
her calf, and he at once conjectured that it had
been attacked, and perhaps killed, by some animal
of prey. To satisfy himself on this point he began
to search for it, and while thus engaged the cow

 

Puma killed hy Cow

repeatedly charged him with the greatest fury.
Presently he discovered the calf lying dead among
the long grass; and by its side lay a full-grown
puma, also dead, and with a large wound in its
side, just behind the shoulder. The calf had been
killed by the puma, for its throat showed the wounds
of large teeth, and the puma had been killed by
the cow. When he saw it he could, he affirmed,
scarcely believe the evidence of his own senses, for
it was an unheard-of thing that a puma should be
40 The Naturalist in La Plata.

injured by any other animal. His opinion was that
it had come down from the hills in a starving con-
dition, and having sprung upon the calf, the taste
of blood had made it for a moment careless of its
own safety, and during that moment the infuriated
cow had charged, and driving one of her long sharp
horns into some vital part, killed it instantly.

The puma is, with the exception of some monkeys,
the most playful animal in existence. The young
of all the Felide spend a large portion of their
time in characteristic gambols ; the adults, however,
acquire a grave and dignified demeanour, only the
female playing on occasions with her offspring ; but
this she always does with a certain formality of
manner, as if the relaxation were indulged in not
spontaneously, but for the sake of the young and as
being a necessary part of their education. Some
writer has described the lion’s assumption of gaiety as
more grim than its most serious moods. The puma
at heart is always a kitten, taking unmeasured delight
in its frolics, and when, as often happens, one lives
alone in the desert, it will amuse itself by the hour
fighting mock battles or playing at hide-and-seek
with imaginary companions, and lying in wait and
putting all its wonderful strategy in practice to
capture a passing butterfly. Azara kept a young
male for four months, which spent its whole time
playing with the slaves. This animal, he says,
would not refuse any food offered to it ; but when
not hungry it would bury the meat in the sand, and
when inclined to eat dig it up, and, taking it to the
water-trough, wash it clean. I have only known
one puma kept as a pet, and this animal, in seven
The Puma, or Lion of America. 41

or eight years had never shown a trace of ill-
temper. When approached, he would lie down,
purring loudly, and twist himself about a person’s
legs, begging to be caressed. A string or hand-
kerchief drawn about was sufficient to keep him ina
happy state of excitement for an hour; and when
one person was tired of playing with him he was
ready for a game with the next comer.

I was told by a person who had spent most of
his life on the pampas that on one occasion, when
travelling in the neighbourhood of Cape Corrientes,
his horse died under him, and he was compelled to
continue his journey on foot, burdened with his
heavy native horse-gear. At night he made his
bed under the shelter of a rock, on the slope of a
stony sierra; a bright moon was shining, and
about nine o’clock in the evening four pumas
appeared, two adults with their two half-grown
young. Not feeling the least alarm at their pre-
sence, he did not stir ; and after a while they began
to gambol together close to him, concealing them-
selves from each other among the rocks, just as
kittens do, and frequently while pursuing one
another leaping over him. He continued watching
them until past midnight, then fell asleep, and
did not wake until morning, when they had left
him.

This man was an Englishman by birth, but
» having gone very young to South America he had
taken kindly to the semi-barbarous life of the
gauchos, and had imbibed all their peculiar notions,
one of which is that human life is not worth very
much. “What does it matter?” they often say,
42 The Naturalist in La Plata.

and shrug their shoulders, when told of a comrade’s
death ; “so many beautiful horses die!” I asked
him if he had ever killed a puma, and he replied
that he had killed only one and had sworn never to
kill another. He said that while out one day with
another gaucho looking for cattle a puma was
found. It sat up with its back against a stone, and
did not move even when his companion threw the
noose of his lasso over its neck. My informant
then dismounted, and, drawing his knife, advanced
to kill it: still the puma made no attempt to free
itself from the lasso, but it seemed to know, he
said, what was coming, for it began to tremble, the
tears ran from its eyes, and it whined in the most
pitiful manner. He killed it as it sat there unre-
sisting before him, but after accomplishing the
deed felt that he had committed a murder. It was
the only thing he had ever done in his life, he
added, which filled him with remorse when he
remembered it. This I thought a rather startling
declaration, as I knew that he had killed several
individuals of his own species in duels, fought
with knives, in the fashion of the gauchos.

All who have killed or witnessed the killing of
the puma—and I have questioned scores of hunters
on this point—agree that it resigns itself in this
unresisting, pathetic manner to death at the hands
of man. Claudio Gay, in his Natural History of
Chili, says, ‘‘ When attacked by man its energy and
daring at once forsake it, and it becomes a weak,
inoffensive animal, and trembling, and uttering
piteous moans, and shedding abundant tears, it
gcems to implore compassion from a generous
The Puma, or Lion of America. 43

enemy.” The enemy is not often generous; but
many gauchos have assured me, when speaking on
this subject, that although they kill the puma readily
to protect their domestic animals, they consider it
an evil thing to take its life in desert places, where
it is man’s only friend among the wild animals.
When the hunter is accompanied by dogs, then
the puma, instead of drooping and shedding tears,
is roused to a sublime rage: its hair stands erect ;
its eyes shine like balls of green flame ; it spits and
snarls like a furious tom cat. The hunter’s pre-
sence seems at such times to be ignored altogether,
its whole attention being given to the dogs and its
rage directed against them. In Patagonia a sheep-
farming Scotchman, with whom I spent some days,
showed me the skulls of five pumas which he had
shot in the vicinity of his ranche. One was of an
exceptionally large individual, and I here relate
what he told me of his encounter with this animal,
as it shows just how the puma almost invariably
behaves when attacked by man and dogs. He was
out on foot with his flock, when the dogs discovered
the animal concealed among the bushes. He had
left his gun at home, and having no weapon, and
finding that the dogs dared not attack it where it
sat in a defiant attitude with its back against a
thorny bush, he looked about and found a large dry
stick, and going boldly up to it tried to stun it
with a violent blow on the head. But though it
never looked at him, its fiery eyes gazing steadily at
the dogs all the time, he could not hit it, for with a
quick side movement it avoided every blow. The
small heed the puma paid him, and the apparent
44 The Naturalist in La Plata.

ease with which it avoided his best-aimed blows,
only served to rouse his spirit, and at length striking
with increased force his stick came to the ground
and was broken to pieces. For some moments he
now stood within two yards of the animal perfectly
defenceless and not knowing what to do. Suddenly
it sprang past him, actually brushing against his arm
with its side, and began pursuing the dogs round
and round among the bushes. In the end my
informant’s partner appeared on the scene with his
rifle, and the puma was shot.

In encounters of this kind the most curious thing
is that the puma steadfastly refuses to recognize an
enemy in man, although it finds him acting in
concert with its hated canine foe, about whose
hostile intentions it has no such delusion.

Several years ago a paragraph, which reached
me in South America, appeared in the English
papers relating an incident characteristic of the
puma in a wild beast show in this country. The
animal was taken out of its cage and led about the
grounds by its keeper, followed by a large number
of spectators. Suddenly it was struck motionless
by some object in the crowd, at which it gazed
steadily with a look of intense excitement; then
springing violently away it dragged the chain from
the keeper’s hand and dashed in among the people,
who immediately fed screaming in all directions.
Their fears were, however, idle, the object of the
puma’s rage being a dog which it had spied among
the crowd.

It is said that when taken adult pumas invariably
pine away and die; when brought up in captivity
The Puma, or Lion of America. 45

they invariably make playful, affectionate pets, and
are gentle towards all human beings, but very
seldom overcome their instinctive animosity towards
the dog.

One of the very few authentic instances I have
met with of this animal defending itself against a
human being was related to me at a place on the
pampas called Saladillo. At the time of my visit
there jaguars and prmas were very abundant and
extremely destructive to the cattle and horses.
Sheep it had not yet been considered worth while
to introduce, but immense herds of pigs were kept
at every estancia, these animals being able to pro-
tect themselves. One gaucho had so repeatedly
distinguished himself by his boldness and dexterity
in killing jaguars that he was by general consent
made the leader of every tiger-hunt. One day the
comandante of the district got twelve or fourteen
men together, the tiger-slayer among them, and
started in search of a jaguar which had been seen
that morning in the neighbourhood of his estancia.
The animal was eventually found and surrounded,
and as it was crouching among some clumps of tall
pampas grass, where throwing a lasso over its neck
would be a somewhat difficult and dangerous opera-
tion, all gave way to the famous hunter, who at
once uncoiled his lasso and proceeded in a leisurely
manner to form the loop. While thus engaged he
made the mistake of allowing his horse, which had
grown restive, to turn aside from the hunted animal.
The jaguar, instantly taking advantage of the over-
sight, burst from its cover and sprang first on to the
haunches of the horse, then seizing the hunter by
46 Lhe Naturalist in La Plata.

his poncho dragged him to the earth, and would no
doubt have quickly despatched him if a lasso, thrown
by one of the other men, had not closed round its
neck at this critical moment. It was quickly dragged
off, and eventually killed. But the discomfited
hunter did not stay to assist at the finish. He arose
from the ground unharmed, but in a violent passion
and blaspheming horribly, for he knew that his
reputation, which he prized above everything, had
suffered a great blow, and that he would be
mercilessly ridiculed by his associates. Getting on
his horse he rode away by himself from the scene
of his misadventure. Of what happened to him on
his homeward ride there were no witnesses; but
his own account was as follows, and inasmuch as it
told against his own prowess it was readily believed :
Before riding a league, and while his bosom was
still burning with rage, a puma started up from the
long grass in his path, but made no attempt to run
away ; it merely sat up, he said, and looked at him
in a provokingly fearless manner. To slay this
animal with his knife, and so revenge himself on it
for the defeat he had just suffered, was his first
thought. He alighted and secured his horse by
tying its fore feet together, then, drawing his long,
heavy knife, rushed at the puma. Still it did not
stir. Raising his weapon he struck with a force
which would have split the animal’s skull open if
the blow had fallen where it was intended to fall,
but with a quick movement the puma avoided it,
and at the same time lifted a foot and with lightning
rapidity dealt the aggressor a blow on the face, its
unsheathed claws literally dragging down the flesh
Lhe Puma, or Lion of America. 47

from his cheek, laying the bone bare. After in-
flicting this terrible punishment and eyeing its
fallen foe for a few seconds it trotted quietly away.
The wounded man succeeded in getting on to his
horse and reaching his home. The hanging flesh was
restored to its place and the ghastly rents sewn
up, and in the end he recovered: but he was dis-
figured for life; his temper also completely changed ;
he became morose and morbidly sensitive to the
ridicule of his neighbours, and he never again
ventured to join them in their hunting expeditions.

I inquired of the comandante, and of others,
whether any case had come to their knowledge in
that district in which the puma had shown anything
beyond a mere passive friendliness towards man ; in
reply they related the following incident, which had
occurred at the Saladillo a few years before my
visit: The men all went out one day beyond the
frontier to form a cerco, as it is called, to hunt
ostriches and other game. The hunters, number-
ing about thirty, spread themselves round in a vast
ring and, advancing towards the centre, drove the
animals before them. During the excitement of the
chase which followed, while they were all engaged
in preventing the ostriches, deer, &c., from doubling
back and escaping, it was not noticed that one of
the hunters had disappeared; his horse, however, re-
turned to its home during the evening, and on the
next morning a fresh hunt for the lost man was
organized. He was eventually found lying on the
ground with a broken leg, where he had been thrown
at the beginning of the hunt. He related that
about an hour after it had become dark a puma
48 The Naturalist tn La Plata.

appeared and sat near him, but ‘did not seem to
notice him. After a while it became restless, fre-
quently going away and returning, and finally it
kept away so long, that he thought it had left him
for good. About midnight he heard the deep roar
of ajaguar, and gave himself up for lost. By raising
himself on his elbow he was able to see the outline
of the beast crouching near him, but its face was
turned from him, and it appeared to be intently
watching some object on which it was about to
spring. Presently it crept out of sight, then he
heard snarlings and growlings and the sharp yell of
a puma, and he knew that the two beasts were
fighting. Before morning he saw the jaguar several
times, but the puma renewed the contest with it
again and again until morning appeared, after which
he saw and heard no more of them.

Extraordinary as this story sounds, it did not
seem so to me when I heard it, for I had already
met with many anecdotes of a similar nature in
various parts of the country, some of them vastly
more interesting than the one I have just narrated ;
only I did not get them at first hand, and am con-
sequently not able to vouch for their accuracy ; but
in this case it seemed to me that there was really
no room for doubt. All that I had previously heard
had compelled me to believe that the puma really
does possess a unique instinct of friendliness for
man, the origin of which, like that of many other well-
known instincts of animals, must remain a mystery.
The fact that the puma never makes an unprovoked
attack on a human being, or eats human flesh, and
that it refuses, except in some very rare cases, even
The Puma, or Lion of America. 49

to defend itself, does not seem really less wonderful
in an animal of its bold and sanguinary temper than
that it should follow the traveller in the wilderness,
or come near him when he lies sleeping or disabled,
and even occasionally defend him from its enemy
the jaguar. We know that certain sounds, colours,
or smells, which are not particularly noticed by
most animals, produce an extraordinary effect on
some species; and it is possible to believe, I think,
that the human form or countenance, or the odour
of the human body, may also have the effect on the
puma of suspending its predatory instincts and in-
spiring it with a gentleness towards man, which we
are only accustomed to see in our domesticated
carnivores or in feral animals towards those of their
own species. Wolves, when pressed with hunger,
will sometimes devour a fellow wolf; as a rule,
however, rapacious animals will starve to death
rather than prey on one of their own kind, nor is it
a common thing for them to attack other species
possessing instincts similar to their own. The
puma, we have seen, violently attacks other large
carnivores, not to feed on them, but merely to
satisfy its animosity ; and, while respecting man, it
is, within the tropics, a great hunter and eater of
monkeys, which of all animals most resemble men.
We can only conclude with Humboldt that there is
something mysterious in the hatreds and affections
of animals.

The view here taken of the puma’s character
imparts, I think, a fresh interest to some things
concerning the species, which have appeared in
50 The Naturalist in La Plata.

historical and other works, and which I propose to
discuss briefly in this place.

There is a remarkable passage in Byron’s Nar-
rative of the loss of the Wager, which was quoted
by Admiral Fitzroy in his Voyage of the Beagle,
to prove that the puma inhabits Tierra del Fuego
and the adjacent islands; no other large beast of
prey being known in that part of America. “I
heard,” he says, “a growling close by me, which
made me think it advisable to retire as soon as
possible: the woods were so gloomy I could see
nothing; but, as I retired, this noise followed me
close till I got out of them. Some of our men did
assure me that they had seen a very large beast in
the woods. . . I proposed to four of the people to
go to the end of the bay, about two miles distant
from the bell tent, to occupy the skeleton of an old
Indian wigwam, which I had discovered in a walk
that way on our first landing. This we covered to
windward with seaweed; and, lighting a fire, laid
ourselves down in hopes of finding a remedy for our
hunger in sleep; but we had not long composed
ourselves before one of our company was disturbed |
by the blowing of some animal at his face; and,
upon opening his eyes, was not a little astonished
to see by the glimmering of the fire, a large beast
standing over him. He had presence of mind
enough to snatch a brand from the fire, which was
now very low, and thrust it at the nose of the
animal, which thereupon made off... . In the
morning we were not a little anxious to know how
our companions had fared; and this anxiety was
increased upon our tracing the footsteps of the
The Puma, or Lion of America. 51

beast in the sand, in a direction towards the bell
tent. The impression was deep and plain, of a
large round foot well furnished with claws. Upon
acquainting the people in the tent with the circum-
stances of our story, we found that they had been
visited by the same unwelcome guest.”

Mr. Andrew Murray, in his work on the Geogra-
phical Distribution of Mammals, gives the Straits
of Magellan as the extreme southern limit of the
puma’s range, and in discussing the above passage
from Byron he writes: “ This reference, however,
gives no support to the notion of the animal alluded
to having been a puma. . . . The description of the
footprints clearly shows that the animal could not
have beena puma. None of the cat tribe leave any
trace of a claw in their footprints. ... The dogs,
on the other hand, leave a very well-defined claw-
mark. . . . Commodore Byron and his party had
therefore suffered a false alarm. The creature
which had disturbed them was, doubtless, one of the
harmless domestic dogs of the natives.”

The assurance that the bold hardy adventurer
and his men suffered a false alarm, and were thrown
into a great state of excitement at the appearance of
one of the wretched domestic dogs of the Fuegians,
with which they were familiar, comes charmingly,
it must be said, from a closet naturalist, who
surveys the world of savage beasts from his London
study. He apparently forgets that Commodore
Byron lived in a time when the painful accuracy
and excessive minuteness we are accustomed to was
not expected from a writer, whenever he happened

to touch on any matters connected with zoology.
E
52 The Naturalist in La Plata.

This kind of criticism, which seizes on a slight
inaccuracy in one passage, and totally ignores an
importart statement in another—as, for instance,
that of the “ great beast ” seen in the woods—might
be extended to other portions of the book, and
Byron’s entire narrative made to appear as purely
a work of the imagination as Peter Wilkin’s adven-
tures in those same antarctic seas.

Mr. J. W. Boddam Whetham, in his work Across
Central America (1877), gives an anecdote of the
puma, which he heard at Sacluk, in Guatemala, and
which strangely resembles some of the stories I
have heard on the pampas. He writes: “The
following event, most extraordinary if true, is said
to have occurred in this forest to a mahogany-cutter,
who had been out marking trees. As he was re-
turning to his hut, he suddenly felt a soft body
pressing against him, and on looking down saw a
cougar, which, with tail erect, and purring like a
cat, twisted itself in and out of his legs, and glided
round him, turning up its fierce eyes as if with
laughter. Horror-stricken and with faltering steps
he kept on, and the terrible animal still circled
about, now rolling over, and now touching him with
a paw like a cat playing with a mouse. At last the
suspense became too great, and with a loud shout
he struck desperately at the creature with his axe.
It bounded on one side and crouched snarling and
showing its teeth. Just as it was about to spring,
the man’s companion, who had heard his call,
appeared in the distance, and with a growl the beast
vanished into the thick bushes.”

Now, after allowing for exaggeration, if there is
The Puma, or Lion of America. 53

no foundation for stories of this character, it is
really a very wonderful coincidence that they should
be met with in countries so widely separated as
Patagonia and Central America, Pumas, doubtless,
are scarce in Guatemala; and, as in other places
where they have met with nothing but persecution
from man, they are shy of him; but had this adven-
ture occurred on the pampas, where they are better
known, the person concerned in it would not have
said that the puma played with him as a cat with
a mouse, but rather as a tame cat plays with a
child; nor, probably, would he have been terrified
into imagining that the animal, even after its
caresses had met with so rough a return, was about
to spring on him.

In Clavigero’s History of Lower California, it
is related that a very extraordinary state of things
was discovered to exist in that country by the first
missionaries who settled there at the end of the
seventeenth century, and which was actually owing
to the pumas. The author says that there were no
bears or tigers (jaguars); these had most probably
been driven out by their old enemies; but the
pumas had increased to a prodigious extent, so that
the whole peninsula was overrun by them; and
this was owing to the superstitious regard in which
they were held by the natives, who not only did not
kill them, but never ventured to disturb them in any
way. The Indians were actually to some extent
dependent on the puma’s success in hunting for
their subsistence ; they watched the movements of
the vultures in order to discover the spot in which
the remains of any animal it had captured had been
54 The Naturalist in La Plata.

left by the puma, and whenever the birds were seen
circling about persistently over one place, they has-
tened to take possession of the carcass, discovered in
this way. The domestic animals, imported by the
missionaries, were quickly destroyed by the virtual
masters of the country, and against these enemies
the Jesuits preached a crusade in vain: for although
the Indians readily embraced Christianity and were
baptized, they were not to be shaken in their notions
_concerning the sacred Chimbicdé, as the puma was
called. The missions languished in consequence ;
the priests existed in a state of semi-starvation,
depending on provisions sent to them at long
intervals from the distant Mexican settlements ;
and for many years all their efforts to raise the
savages from their miserable condition were thrown
away. At length, in 1701, the mission of Loreto
was taken charge of by one Padre Ugarte, described
by Clavigero as a person of indomitable energy, and
ereat physical strength and courage, a true muscular
Christian, who occasionally varied his method of
instruction by administering corporal chastise-
ments to his hearers when they laughed at his
doctrines, or at the mistakes he made in their
language, while preaching to them. Ugarte, like
his predecessors, could not move the Indians to
hunt the puma, but he was a man of action, with a
wholesome belief in the efficacy of example, and his
opportunity came at last.

One day, while riding in the wood, ‘he saw ata
distance a puma walking deliberately towards
him. Alighting from his mule, he took up a large

stone and advanced to meet the animal, and when
The Puma, or Lion of America. 55

sufficiently near hurled the missile with such
precision and force that he knocked it down sense-
less. After killing it, he found that the heaviest
part of his task remained, as it was necessary for
the success of his project to carry the beast, still
warm and bleeding, to the Indian village; but
now his mule steadfastly refused to approach it.
Father Ugarte was not, however, to be defeated,
and partly by stratagem, partly by force, he
finally succeeded in getting the puma on to the
mule’s back, after which he rode in triumph to
the settlement. The Indians at first thought it
all a trick of their priest, who was so anxious to
involve them in a conflict with the pumas, and
standing at a distance they began jeering at him,
and exclaiming that he had found the animal dead.
But when they were induced to approach, and saw
that it was still warm and bleeding, they were
astonished beyond measure, and began to watch the
priest narrowly, thinking that he would presently
drop down and die in sight of them all. It was
their belief that death would quickly overtake the
slayer of a puma. As this did not happen, the
priest gained a great influence over them, and in the
end they were persuaded to turn their weapons
against the Chimbica.

Clavigero has nothing to say concerning the
origin of this Californian superstition; but with
some knowledge of the puma’s character, it is not
difficult to imagine what it may have been. No
doubt these savages had been very well acquainted
from ancient times with the animal’s instinct of
friendliness toward man, and its extreme hatred of
56 The Naturalist in La Plata.

other carnivores, which prey on the human species;
and finding it ranged on their side, as it were, in the
hard struggle of life in the desert, they were induced
to spare it, and even to regard it as a friend; and
such a feeling, among primitive men, might in the
course of time degenerate into such a superstition
as that of the Californians.

I shall, in conclusion, relate here the story of
Maldonada, which is not generally known, although
familiar to Buenos Ayreans as the story of Lady
Godiva’s ride through Coventry is to the people of
that town. The case of Maldonada is circum-
stantially narrated by Rui Diaz de Guzman, in his
history of the colonization of the Plata: he was a
person high in authority in the young colonies, and
is regarded by students of South American history
as an accurate and sober-minded chronicler of the
events of his own times. He relates that in the
year 1536 the settlers at Buenos Ayres, having
exhausted their provisions, and being compelled by
hostile Indians to keep within their pallisades, were
reduced to the verge of starvation. The Governor
Mendoza went off to seek help from the other
colonies up the river, deputing his authority to one
Captain Ruiz, who, according to all accounts, dis-
played an excessively tyrannous and _truculent
disposition while in power. The people were finally
reduced to a ration of six ounces of flour per day
for each person; but as the flour was putrid and
only made them ill, they were forced to live on any
small animals they could capture, including snakes,
frogs and toads. Some horrible details are given
by Rui Diaz, and other writers; one, Del Barco
 

 

 

 

 
The Puma, or Lion of America SF

Centenera, affirms that of two thousand persons in
the town eighteen hundred perished of hunger.
During this unhappy time, beasts of prey in large
numbers were attracted to the settlement by the
efuvium of the corpses, buried just outside the
pallisades; and this made the condition of the
survivors more miserable still, since they could
venture into the neighbouring woods only at the
risk of a violent death. Nevertheless, many did so
venture, and among these was the young woman
Maldonada, who, losing herself in the forest, strayed
to a distance, and was eventually found by a party
of Indians, and carried by them to their village.
Some months later, Captain Ruiz discovered
her whereabouts, and persuaded the savages to
bring her to the settlement ; then, accusing her of
having gone to the Indian village in order to betray
the colony, he condemned her to be devoured by
wild beasts. She was taken to a wood at a dis-
tance of a league from the town, and left there, tied
to a tree, for the space of two nights and a day.
A party of soldiers then went to the spot, expecting
to find her bones picked clean by the beasts, but
were greatly astonished to find Maldonada still
alive, without hurt or scratch. She told them that
a puma had come to her aid, and had kept at her
side, defending her life against all the other beasts
that approached her. She was instantly released,
and taken back to the town, her deliverance through ©
the action of the puma probably being looked on as
a direct interposition of Providence to save her.
Rui Diaz concludes with the following paragraph,
in which he affirms that he knew the woman Mal-
58 The Naturalist in La Plata.

donada, which may be taken as proof that she
was among the few that survived the first dis-
astrous settlement and lived on to more fortunate
times: his pious pun on her name would be lost
in a translation :—“ De esta manera quedo libre la
que ofrecieron a las fieras: la cual mujer yo la
conocl, y la llamaban la Maldonada, que mas bien
se le podia llamar la Biznponapa; pues por este
suceso se ha de ver no haber merecido el castigo 4
que la ofrecieron.”

If such a thing were to happen now, in any
portion of southern South America, where the
puma’s disposition is best known, it would not be
looked on as a miracle, as it was, and that un-
avoidably, in the case of Maldonada.
CHAPTER III.
A WAVE OF LIFE.

For many years, while living in my own home on
the pampas, I kept a journal, in which all my daily
observations on the habits of animals and kindred
matters were carefully noted. Turning back to
1872-3, I find my jottings for that season contain a
history of one of those waves of life—for I can think
of no better name for the phenomenon in question
—that are of such frequent occurrence in thinly-
settled regions, though in countries like England,
seen very rarely, and on a very limited scale. An
exceptionally bounteous season, the accidental miti-
gation of a check, or other favourable circumstance,
often causes an increase so sudden and inordinate
of small prolific species, that when we actually
witness it we are no longer surprised at the notion
prevalent amongst the common people that mice,
frogs, crickets, &c., are occasionally rained down
from the clouds.

In the summer of 1872-8 we had plenty of sun-
shine, with frequent showers; so that the hot
months brought no dearth of wild flowers, as in
most years. The abundance of flowers resulted in
a wonderful increase of humble bees. I have never
known them so plentiful before; in and about the
60 The Naturalist in La Plata.

plantation adjoining my house I found, during the
season, no fewer than seventeen nests.

The season was also favourable for mice; that is,
of course, favourable for the time being, unfavour-
able in the long run, since the short-lived, undue
preponderance of a species is invariably followed
by a long period of undue depression. These pro-
lific little creatures were soon so abundant that the
dogs subsisted almost exclusively on them; the
fowls also, from incessantly pursuing and killing
them, became quite rapacious in their manner;
whilst the sulphur tyrant-birds (Pitangus) and the
Guira cuckoos preyed on nothing but mice.

The domestic cats, as they invariably do in such
plentiful seasons, absented themselves from the
house, assuming all the habits of their wild con-
geners, and slinking from the sight of man—even of
a former fireside companion—with a shy secrecy in
their motions, an apparent affectation of fear, almost
ludicrous to see. Foxes, weasels, and opossums
fared sumptuously. Even for the common armadillo
(Dasypus villosus) it was a season of affluence, for
this creature is very adroit in capturing mice. This
fact might seem surprising to anyone who marks
the uncouth figure, toothless gums, and the motions
—anything but light and graceful—of the armadillo ;
and perhaps fancying that, to be a dexterous mouser,
an animal should bear some resemblance in habits
and structure to the felide. But animals, like men,
are compelled to adapt themselves to their surround-
ings; new habits are acquired, and the exact co-
relation between habit and structure is seldom
maintained.
A Wave of Life. 61

[ kept an armadillo at this time, and good cheer
and the sedentary life he led in captivity made him
excessively fat; but the mousing exploits of even
this individual were most interesting. Occasionally
I took him into the fields to give him a taste of
liberty, though at such times I always took the
precaution to keep hold of a cord fastened to one of
his hind legs ; for as often as he came to a kennel
of one of his wild fellows, he would attempt to
escape into it. He invariably travelled with an
ungainly trotting gait, carrying his nose, beagle-
like, close to the ground. His sense of smell was
exceedingly acute, and when near his prey he
became agitated, and quickened his motions, pausing
frequently to sniff the earth, till, discovering the
exact spot where the mouse lurked, he would stop
and creep cautiously to it; then, after slowly raising
himself to a sitting posture, spring suddenly for-
wards, throwing his body like a trap over the mouse,
or nest of mice, concealed beneath the grass.

A curious instance of intelligence in a cat was
brought to my notice at this time by one of my
neighbours, a native. His children had made the
discovery that some excitement and fun was to be
had by placing a long hollow stalk of the giant
thistle with a mouse in it—and every hollow stalk
at this time had one for a tenant—before a cat, and
then watching her movements. Smelling her prey,
she would spring at one end of the stalk—the end to-
wards which the mouse would be moving at the
same time, but would catch nothing, for the mouse,
instead of running out, would turn back to run to
the other end; whereupon the cat, all excitement,
62 The Naturalist in La Plata.

would jump there to seize it; and so the contest
would continue for a long time, an exhibition of the
cleverness and the stupidity of instinct, both of the
pursuer and the pursued. There were several cats
at the house, and all acted in the same way except
one. When a stalk was placed before this cat,
instead of becoming excited like the others, it went
quickly to one end and smelt at the opening, then,
satisfied that its prey was inside, it deliberately bit
along piece out of the stalk with its teeth, then
another strip, and so on progressively, until the
entire stick had been opened up to within six or
eight inches of the further end, when the mouse
came out and was caught. Every stalk placed
before this cat was demolished in the same business-
like way; but the other cats, though they were made
to look on while the stick was being broken up by
their fellow, could never learn the trick.

In the autumn of the year countless numbers of
storks (Ciconia maguari) and of short-eared owls
(Otus brachyotus) made their appearance. They
had also come to assist at the general feast.

Remembering the opinion of Mr. EH. Newman,
quoted by Darwin, that two-thirds of the humble
bees in England are annually destroyed by mice, I
determined to continue observing these insects, in
order to ascertain whether the same thing occurred
on the pampas. I carefully revisited all the nests
I had found, and was amazed at the rapid disap-
pearance of all the bees. I was quite convinced that
the mice had devoured or driven them out, for the
weather was still warm, and flowers and fruit on
which humble bees feed were very abundant,
A Wave of Life. 63

After cold weather set in the storks went away,
probably on account of the scarcity of water, for
the owls remained. So numerous were they during
the winter, that any evening after sunset I could
count forty or fifty individuals hovering over the
trees about my house. Unfortunately they did not
confine their attentions to the mice, but became de-
structive to the birdsas well. I frequently watched
them at dusk, beating about the trees and bushes
in a systematic manner, often a dozen or more of
them wheeling together about one tree, like so many
moths about a candle, and one occasionally dashing
through the branches until a pigeon—usually the
Zenaida maculata—or other bird was scared from
its perch. The instant the bird left the tree they
would all give chase, disappearing in the darkness.
[ could not endure to see the havoc they were
making amongst the ovenbirds (Furnarius rufus—a
species for which I have a regard and affection
almost superstitious), so I began to shoot the
marauders. Very soon, however, I found it was
impossible to protect my little favourites. Night
after night the owls mustered in their usual numbers,
so rapidly were the gaps I made in their ranks
refilled. I grew sick of the cruel war in which I
had so hopelessly joined, and resolved, not without
pain, to let things take their course. A singular
circumstance was that the owls began to breed in
the middle of winter. The field-labourers and boys
found many nests with eggs and young birds in
the neighbourhood. I saw one nest in July, our
coldest month, with three half-grown young birds
in it, They were excessively fat, and, though it
64 The Naturalist in La Plaia.

was noon-day, had their crops full. There were
three mice and two young cavies (Cavia australis)
lying untouched in the nest.

The short-eared owl is of a wandering disposi-
tion, and performs long journeys at all seasons of
the year in search of districts where food is abun-
dant; and perhaps these winter-breeders came
from a region where scarcity of prey, or some such
cause, had prevented them from nesting at their
usual time in summer.

The gradual increase or decrease continually
going on in many species about us is little re-
marked ; but the sudden infrequent appearance in
vast numbers of large and comparatively rare species
is regarded by most people as a very wonderful
phenomenon, not easily explained. On the pampas,
whenever grasshoppers, mice, frogs or crickets
become excessively abundant we confidently look
for the appearance of multitudes of the birds that
prey on them. However obvious may be the cause
of the first phenomenon—the sudden inordinate
increase during a favourable year of a species
always prolific—the attendant one always creates
astonishment : For how, it is asked, do these large
birds, seldom seen at other times, receive informa-
tion in the distant regions they inhabit of an abun-
dance of food in any particular locality? Years
have perhaps passed during which scarcely an indi-
vidual of these kinds has been seen: all at once
armies of the majestic white storks are seen con-
spicuously marching about the plain in all direc-
tions; while the night air resounds with the
A Wave of Life. 65

solemn hootings of innumerable owls. It is plain
that these birds have been drawn from over an
immense area to one spot; and the question is
how have they been drawn ?

Many large birds possessing great powers of
flight are, when not occupied with the business of
propagation, incessantly wandering from place to
place in search of food. They are not, as a rule,
regular migrants, for their wanderings begin and
end irrespective of seasons, and where they find
abundance they remain the whole year. They fly
at avery great height, and traverse immense dis-
tances. When the favourite food of any one of
these species is pientiful in any particular region
all the individuals that discover it remain, and
attract to them all of their kind passing overhead.
This happens on the pampas with the stork, the
short-eared owl, the hooded gull and the dominican
or black-backed gull—the leading species among
the feathered nomads: a few first appear like
harbingers; these are presently joined by new
comers in considerable numbers, and before long
they are in myriads. Inconceivable numbers of
birds are, doubtless, in these regions, continually
passing over us unseen. It was once a subject of
very great wonder to me that flocks of black-necked
swans should almost always appear flying by imme-
diately after a shower of rain, even when none had
been visible for a long time before, and when they
must have come from a very great distance. When
the reason at length occurred to me, I felt very
much disgusted with myself for being puzzled over
so very simple a matter. After rain a flying swan

F
66 The Naturalist in La Plata.

may be visible to the eye at a vastly greater dis-
tance than during fair weather; the sun shining
on its intense white plumage against the dark back-
ground of a rain-cloud making it exceedingly con-
spicuous. The fact that swans are almost always
seen after rain shows only that they are almost
always passing.

Whenever we are visited by a dust-storm on the
pampas myriads of hooded gulls—Larus maculipen-
nis—appear flying before the dark dust-cloud, even
when not a gull has been seen for months. Dust-
storms are of rare occurrence, and come only after
a long drought, and, the water-courses being all dry,
the gulls cannot have been living in the region over
which the storm passes. Yet in seasons of drought
gulls must be continually passing by at a great
height, seeing but not seen, except when driven
together and forced towards the earth by the fury
of the storm.

By August (1873) the owls had vanished, and
they had, indeed, good cause for leaving. The
winter had been one of continued drought; the-dry
grass and herbage of the preceding year had been
consumed by the cattle and wild animals, or had
turned to dust, and with the disappearance of their
food and cover the mice had ceased to be. The
famine-stricken cats sneaked back to the house.
It was pitiful to see the little burrowing owls;
for these birds, not having the powerful wings and
prescient instincts of the vagrant Otus brachyotus,
are compelled to face the poverty from which the
others escape. Just as abundance had before made
A Wave of Life. 67

the domestic cats wild, scarcity now made the
burrowing owls tame and fearless of man. They
were so reduced as scarcely to be able to fly, and
hung about the houses all day long on the look-out
for some stray morsel of food. I have frequently
seen one alight and advance within two or three
yards of the door-step, probably attracted by tho
smell of roasted meat. The weather continued dry
until late in spring, so reducing the sheep and
cattle that incredible numbers perished during a
month of cold and rainy weather that followed the
drought.

How clearly we can see in all this that the ten-
dency to multiply rapidly, so advantageous in
normal seasons, becomes almost fatal to a species
in seasons of exceptional abundance. Cover and
food without limit enabled the mice to increase at
such an amazing rate that the lesser checks inter-
posed by predatory species were for a while in-
appreciable. But as the mice increased, so did
their enemies. Insectivorous and other species
acquired the habits of owls and weasels, preying
exclusively on them; while to this innumerable
army of residents was shortly added multitudes of
wandering birds coming from distant regions. No
sooner had the herbage perished, depriving the
little victims of cover and food, than the effects of
the war became apparent. In autumn the earth so
teemed with them that one could scarcely walk
anywhere without treading on mice; while out of
every hollow weed-stalk lying on the ground
dozens could be shaken; but so rapidly had they
been devoured by the trained army of persecutors,
68 The Naturalist in La Plata.

that in spring it was hard to find a survivor, even
in the barns and houses. The fact that species
tend to increase in a geometrical ratio makes these
great and sudden changes frequent in many regions
of the earth; but it is not often they present them-
selves so vividly as in the foregoing instance, for
here, scene after scene in one of Nature’s silent
passionless tragedies opens before us, countless
myriads of highly organized beings rising into
existence only to perish almost immediately, scarcely
a hard-pressed remnant remaining after the great
reaction to continue the species.
CHAPTER IV.
SOME CURIOUS ANIMAL WEAPONS.

Striortty speaking, the only weapons of vertebrates
are teeth, claws, horns, and spurs. Horns belong
only to the ruminants, and the spur is a rare
weapon. There are also many animals in which
teeth and claws are not suited to inflict injury, or
in which the proper instincts and courage to use
and develop them are wanted; and these would
seem to be in a very defenceless condition. De-
fenceless they are in one sense, but as a fact they
are no worse off than the well-armed species, having
either a protective colouring or a greater swiftness
or cunning to assist them in escaping from their
enemies. And there are also many of these prac-
tically toothless and clawless species which have
yet been provided with other organs and means
of offence and defence out of Nature’s curious
armoury, and concerning a few of these species I
propose to speak in this place.

Probably such distinctive weapons as horns,
spurs, tusks and spines would be much more com-
mon in nature if the conditions of life always re-
mained the same. But these things are long in
fashioning; meanwhile, conditions are changing ;
climate, soil, vegetation vary; foes and rivals
70 The Naturalist in La Plata.

diminish or increase; the old go, and others with
different weapons and a new strategy take their
place; and just as a skilful man “fighting the
wilderness”? fashions a plough from a hunting-
knife, turns his implements into weapons of war,
and for everything he possesses discovers a use
never contemplated by its maker, so does Nature
—only with an ingenuity exceeding that of man—
use the means she has to meet all contingencies,
and enable her creatures, seemingly so ill-provided,
to maintain their fight for life. Natural selection,
like an angry man, can make a weapon of any-
thing; and, using the word in this wide sense, the
mucous secretions the huanaco discharges into the
face of an adversary, and the pestilential drops
“ distilled’ by the skunk, are weapons, and may be
as effectual in defensive warfare as spines, fangs
and tushes.

I do not know of a more striking instance in the
animal kingdom of adaptation of structure to
habit than is afforded by the hairy armadillo—
Dasypus villosus. He appears to us, roughly
speaking, to resemble an ant-eater saddled with a
dish cover; yet this creature, with the cunning
which Nature has given it to supplement all de-
ficiencies, has discovered in its bony encumbrance a
highly efficient weapon of offence. Most other
edentates are diurnal and almost exclusively insec-
tivorous, some feeding only on ants; they have
unchangeable habits, very limited intelligence, and
vanish before civilization. The hairy armadillo
alone has struck out a line for itself. Like its fast
disappearing congeners, it is an insect-eater still,
Some curious Animal Weapons. 71

but does not like them seek its food on the surface
and in the ant-hill only; all kinds of insects are
preyed on, and by means of its keen scent it dis-
covers worms and larve several inches beneath
the surface. Its method of taking worms and
grubs resembles that of probing birds, for it throws
up no earth, but forces its sharp snout and wedge-
shaped head down to the required depth ; and pro-
bably while working it moves round in a circle, for
the hole is conical, though the head of the animal
is flat. Where it has found a rich hunting-ground,
the earth is seen pitted with hundreds of these neat
symmetrical bores. It is also an enemy to ground-
nesting birds, being fond of eggs and fledglings ; and
when unable to capture prey it will feed on carrion
as readily as a wild dog or vulture, returning night
after night to the carcase of a horse or cow as long
as the flesh lasts. Failing animal food, it subsists
on vegetable diet; and I have frequently found
their stomachs stuffed with clover, and, stranger
still, with the large, hard grains of the maize,
swallowed entire.

It is not, therefore, strange that at all seasons,
and even when other animals are starving, the hairy
armadillo is always fat and vigorous. In _ the
desert it is diurnal; but where man appears it’
becomes more and more nocturnal, and in populous
districts does not go abroad until long after dark.
Yet when a district becomes thickly settled it in-
creases in numbers; so readily does it adapt itself
to new conditions. It is not to be wondered at
that the gauchos, keen observers of nature as they
are, should make this species the hero of many of
72 The Naturalist in La Plata.

their fables of the ‘Uncle Remus” type, repre-
senting it asa versatile creature, exceedingly fertile
in expedients, and duping its sworn friend the fox
in various ways, just as “‘ Brer Rabbit” ‘serves the
fox in the North American fables.

The hairy armadillo will, doubtless, long survive
all the other armadillos, and on this account alone
it will have an ever-increasing interest for the
naturalist. I have elsewhere described how it

“a

 

Armadillo killing Snake.

captures mice ; when preying on snakes it proceeds
in another manner. A friend of mine, a careful
observer, who was engaged in cattle-breeding
amongst the stony sierras near Cape Corrientes, de-
scribed to me an encounter he witnessed between
an armadillo and a poisonous snake. While seated
on the hillside one day he observed a snake, about
twenty inches in length, lying coiled up on a stone
five or six yards beneath him. By-and-by, a hairy
Some curtous Animal Weapons. 73

armadillo appeared trotting directly towards it.
Apparently the snake perceived and feared its ap-
proach, for it quickly uncoiled itself and began
gliding away. Instantly the armadillo rushed on
to it, and, squatting close down, began swaying
its body backward and forward with a regular
sawing motion, thus lacerating its victim with the
sharp, deep-cut edges of its bony covering. The
snake struggled to free itself, biting savagely at its
aggressor, for its head and neck were disengaged.
Its bites made no impression, and very soon it
dropped its head, and when its enemy drew off, it
was dead and very much mangled. The armadillo
at once began its meal, taking the tail in its mouth
and slowly progressing towards the head; but when
about a third of the snake still remained it seemed
satisfied, and, leaving that portion, trotted away.

Altogether, in its rapacious and varied habits this
armadillo appears to have some points of resem-
blance with the hedgehog; and possibly, like the
little European mammal it resembles, it is not
harmed by the bite of venomous snakes.

T once had a cat that killed every snake it found,
purely for sport, since it never ate them. It would
jump nimbly round and across its victim, occasion-
ally dealing it a blow with its cruel claws. The
enemies of the snake are legion. Burrowing owls
feed largely on them; so do herons and storks,
killing them with a blow of their javelin beaks,
and swallowing them entire. The sulphur tyrant-
bird picks up the young snake by the tail, and,
flying to a branch or stone, uses it like a flail till
its life is battered out. The bird is highly com-
74 The Naturalist in La Plata.

mended in consequence, reminding one of very
ancient words : “ Happy shall he be that taketh thy
little ones and dasheth them against the stones.”
In arraying such a variety of enemies against the
snake, nature has made ample amends for having
endowed it with deadly weapons. Besides, the
power possessed by venomous snakes only seems
to us disproportionate ; it is not really so, except in
occasional individual encounters. Venomous snakes
are always greatly outnumbered by non-venomous .
ones in the same district; at any rate this is the
case on the pampas. The greater activity of the
latter counts for more in the result than the deadly
weapons of the former.

The large teguexin lizard of the pampas, called
iguana by the country people, is a notable snake-
killer. Snakes have,in fact, nomore formidable enemy,
for hejs quick to see, and swift to overtake them.
He is practically invulnerable, and deals them sudden
death with his powerful tail. The gauchos say that
dogs attacking the iguana are sometimes known to
have their legs broken, and I do not doubt it. A
‘friend of mine was out riding one day after his
cattle, and having attached one end of his lasso to
the saddle, be let it trail onthe ground. He noticed
a large iguana lying apparently asleep in the sun,
and though he rode by it very closely, it did not
stir ; but no sooner had he passed it, than it raised
its head, and fixed its attention on the forty feet of
lasso slowly trailing by. Suddenly it rushed after
the rope, and dealt it a succession of violent blows
with its tail. When the whole of the lasso, several
yards of which had been pounded in vain, had been
Sone curious Animal Weapons. "5

dragged by, the lizard, with uplifted head, continued
gazing after it with the greatest astonishment.
Never had such a wonderful snake crossed ‘its path
before !

Molina, in his Natural History of Chili, says the
vizcacha uses its tail as a weapon; but then Molina
is not always reliable. I have observed vizcachas
all my life, and never detected them making use of
any weapon except their chisel teeth. The tail is
certainly very curious, being straight at the base,
then curving up outwardly, and slightly down again
at the tip, resembling the spout of a china teapot.
The under surface of the straight portion of the base
is padded with a thick, naked, corneous skin ; and,
when the animal performs the curious sportive antics
in which it occasionally indulges, it gives rapid loud-
sounding blows on the ground with this part of the
tail. The peculiar form of the tail also makes it a
capital support, enabling the vizcacha to sit erect,
with ease and security.

The frog is a most timid, inoffensive creature,
saving itself, when pursued, by a series of saltatory
feats unparalleled amongst vertebrates. Conse-
quently, when I find a frog, I have no hesitation in
placing my hands upon it, and the cold sensation it
gives one is the worse result I fear. It came to
pass, however, that I once encountered a frog that
was not like other frogs, for it possessed an instinct
and weapons of offence which greatly astonished
me. I was out snipe shooting one day when,
peering into an old disused burrow, two or three
feet deep, I perceived a burly-looking frog sitting
within it. It was larger and stouter-looking than
76 The Naturalist in La Plata.

our common Rana, though like it in colour, and I
at once dropped on to my knees and set about its
capture. Though it watched me attentively, the
frog remained perfectly motionless, and this greatly
surprised me. Before I was sufficiently near to
make a grab, it sprang ‘straight at my hand, and,
catching two of my fingers round with its fore legs,
administered a hug so sudden and violent as to
cause an acute sensation of pain; then, at the very
instant [ experienced this feeling, which made me
start back quickly, it released its hold and bounded
out and away. I flew after it, and barely managed
to overtake it before it could gain the water.
Holding it firmly pressed behind the shoulders, it
was powerless to attack me, and I then noticed the
enormous development of the muscles of the fore
legs, usually small in frogs, bulging out in this
individual, like a second pair of thighs, and giving
it a strangely bold and formidable appearance. On
holding my gun within its reach, it clasped the
barrel with such energy as to bruise the skin of its
breast and legs. After allowing it to partially
exhaust itself in these fruitless huggings, I experi-
mented by letting it seize my hand again, and I
noticed that invariably after each squeeze it made a
quick, violent attempt to free itself. Believing that
I had discovered a frog differing in structure from
all known species, and possessing a strange unique
instinct of self-preservation, I carried my captive
home, intending to show it to Dr. Burmeister, the
director of the National Museum at Buenos Ayres.
Unfortunately, after I had kept it some days, it
effected its escape by pushing up the glass cover of
Some curious Animal Weapons, uy

its box, and I have never since met with another
individual like it. That this singular frog has it in
its power to seriously injure an opponent is, of
course, out of the question; but its unexpected
attack must be of great advantage. The effect of
the sudden opening of an umbrella in the face of
an angry bull gives, I think, only a faint idea of

 

Wrestler Frog.

the astonishment and confusion it must cause an
adversary by its leap, quick as lightning, and the
violent hug it administers ; and in the confusion it
finds time to escape. I cannot for a moment believe
that an instinct so admirable, correlated as it is
with the structure of the fore legs, can be merely
an individual variation; and I confidently expect
78 The Naturalist in La Plata.

that all I have said about my lost frog will some
day be confirmed by others. Rana luctator would
be a good name for this species.

The toad is a slow-moving creature that puts
itself in the way of persecution ; yet, strange to say,
the acrid juice it exudes. when irritated is a surer
protection to it than venomous fangs are to the
deadliest snake. Toads are, in fact, with a very
few exceptions, only attacked and devoured by
snakes, by lizards, and by their own venomous
relative, Ceratophrys ornata. Possibly the cold
sluggish natures of all these creatures protects them
against the toad’s secretion, which would be poison
to most warm-blooded animals, but I am not so
sure that all fish enjoy a ike immunity. TI one day
noticed a good-sized fish (bagras) floating, belly
upmost, on the water. It had apparently just died,
and had such a glossy, well-nourished look about it,
and appeared so full, I was curious to know the
cause of its death. On opening it I found its
stomach quite filled with a very large toad it had
swallowed. The toad looked perfectly fresh, not
even a faint discoloration of the skin sbowing that
the gastric juices had begun to take effect ; the fish,
in fact, must have died immediately after swallowing
the toad. The country people in South America
believe that the milky secretion exuded by the toad
possesses wonderful curative properties; it is their
invariable specific for shingles—a painful, dangerous
malady common amongst them, and to cure it living
toads are applied to the inflamed part. I dare say
learned physicians would laugh at this cure, but
then, if I mistake not, the learned have in past
Some curtous Animal Weapons. 79

times laughed at other specifics used by the vulgar,
but which now have honourable places in the phar-
macopceia—pepsine, for example. More than two
centuries ago (very ancient times for South America)
the gauchos were accustomed to take the lining of
the rhea’s stomach, dried and powdered, for ailments
caused by impaired digestion ; and the remedy is
popular still. Science has gone over to them, and
the ostrich-hunter now makes a double profit, one
from the feathers, and the other from the dried
stomachs which he supplies to the chemists of
Buenos Ayres. Yet he was formerly told that to
take the stomach of the ostrich to improve his diges-
tion was as’ wild an idea as it would be to swallow
birds’ feathers in order to fly.

I just now called Ceratophrys ornata venomous,
though its teeth are not formed to inject poison
into the veins, like serpents’ teeth. It is a singular
creature, known as escuerzo in the vernacular, and
though beautiful in colour, is in form hideous beyond
description. The skin is of a rich brilliant green,
with chocolate-coloured patches, oval in form, and
symmetrically disposed. The lips are bright
yellow, the cavernous mouth pale flesh colour, the
throat and under-surface dull white. The body is
lumpy, and about the size of a large man’s fist.
The eyes, placed on the summit of a dispropor-
tionately large head, are embedded in horn-like pro-
tuberances, capable of being elevated or depressed
at pleasure. When the creature is undisturbed, the
eyes, which are of a pale gold colour, look out as
from a couple of watch towers, but when touched
on the head or menaced, the prominences sink down
80 The Naturalist in La Plata.

to a level with the head, closing the eyes completely,
and giving the creature the appearance of being
eyeless. The upper jaw is armed with minute
teeth, and there are two teeth in the centre of the
lower jaw, the remaining portions of the jaw being
armed with two exceedingly sharp-edged bony
plates. In place of a tongue, it has a round

 

Ceratophrys ornata.

muscular process with a rough flat disc the size of a
halfpenny.

It is common all over the pampas, ranging as far
south as the Rio Colorado in Patagonia. In the
breeding season it congregates in pools, and one is
then struck by their extraordinary vocal powers,
which they exercise by night. The performance in
no way resembles the series of percussive sounds
uttered by most batrachians. The notes it utters
Some curious Animal Weapons. 81

are long, as of a wind instrument, not unmelodious,
and so powerful as to make themselves heard dis-
tinctly a mile off on still evenings. After the
amorous period these toads retire to moist places
and sit inactive, buried just deep enough to leave
the broad green back on a level with the surface,
and it is then very difficult to detect them. In
this position they wait for their prey—tfrogs, toads,
birds, and small mammals. Often they capture and
attempt to swallow things too large for them, a
mistake often made by snakes. In very wet springs
they sometimes come about houses and lie in wait
for chickens and ducklings. In disposition they are
most truculent, savagely biting at anything that
comes near them; and when they bite they hang on
with the tenacity of a bulldog, poisoning the blood
with their glandular secretions. When teased, the
creature swells itself out to such an extent one
almost expects to see him burst; he follows his
tormentors about with slow awkward leaps, his
vast mouth wide open, and uttering an incessant
harsh croaking sound. A gaucho I knew was once
bitten by one. He sat down on the grass, and,
dropping his hand at his side, had it seized, and
only freed himself by using his hunting knife to
force the creature's mouth open. He washed and
bandaged the wound, and no bad result followed ;
but when the toad cannot be shaken off, then the
result is different. One summer two horses were
found dead on the plain near my home. One, while
lying down, had been seized by a fold in the skin
near the belly; the other had been grasped by the
nose while cropping grass. In both instances the
82 The Naturalist in La Plata.

vicious toad was found dead, with jaws tightly
closed, still hanging to the dead horse. Perhaps
they are sometimes incapable of letting go at will,
and, like honey bees, destroy themselves in these
savage attacks.
CHAPTER V
FEAR IN BIRDS.

Tue statement that birds instinctively fear man is
frequently met with in zoological works written
since the Origin of Species appeared; but almost
the only reason—absolutely the only plausible
reason, all the rest being mere supposition—given
in support of such a notion is that birds in desert
islands show at first no fear of man, but afterwards,
finding him a dangerous neighbour, they become
wild ; and their young also grow up wild. It is
thus assumed that the habit acquired by the former
has become hereditary in the latter—or, at all
events, that in time it becomes hereditary. Instincts,
which are few in number in any species, and practi-
cally endure for ever, are not, presumably, acquired
with such extraordinary facility.

Birds become shy where persecuted, and the
young, even when not disturbed, learn a shy habit
from the parents, and from other adults they
associate with. J have found small birds shyer in
desert places, where the human form was altogether
strange to them, than in thickly-settled districts.
Large birds are actually shyer than the small ones,
although to the civilized or shooting man they seem
astonishingly tame where they have never been
84 Lhe Naturalist in La Plata.

fired at. I have frequently walked quite openly to
within twenty-five or thirty yards of a flock of
flamingoes without alarming them. This, however,
was when they were in the water, or on the opposite
side of a stream. Having no experience of guns,
they fancied themselves secure as long as a strip of
water separated them from the approaching object.
When standing on dry land they would not allow
so near an approach. Sparrows in England are
very much tamer than the sparrows I have observed
in desert places, where they seldom see a human
being. Nevertheless young sparrows in England
are very much tamer than old birds, as anyone may
see for himself. During the past summer, while
living near Kew Gardens, I watched the sparrows a
great deal, and fed forty or fifty of them every day
from a back window. The bread and seed was
thrown on to a low roof just outside the window, and
I noticed that the young birds when first able to fly
were always brought by the parents to this feeding
place, and that after two or three visits they would
begin to come of their own accord. At such times
they would venture quite close to me, showing as
little suspicion as young chickens. The adults,
however, although so much less shy than birds of
other species, were extremely suspicious, snatching
up the bread and flying away ; or, if they remained,
hopping about in a startled manner, craning their
necks to view me, and making so many gestures
and motions, and little chirps of alarm, that presently
the young would become infected with fear. The
lesson was taught them in a surprisingly short
time; their suspicion was seen to increase day by
Fear in Birds. 85

day, and about a week later they were scarcely to
be distinguished in behaviour from the adults. It
is plain that, with these little birds, fear of man is
an associate feeling, and that, unless it had been
taught them, his presence would trouble them as
little as does that of horse, sheep, or cow. But
how about the larger species, used as food, and
which have had a longer and sadder experience of
man’s destructive power ?

‘The rhea, or South American ostrich, philosophers
tell us, is a very ancient bird on the earth; and
from its great size and inability to escape by flight,
and its excellence as food, especially to savages,
who prefer fat rank-flavoured flesh, it must have
been systematically persecuted by man as long as,
or longer than, any bird now existing on the globe.
If fear of man ever becomes hereditary in birds,
we ought certainly to find some trace of such an
instinct in this species. I have been unable to
detect any, though I have observed scores of young
rheas in captivity, taken before the parent bird had
taught them what to fear. Ialso once kept a brood
myself, captured just after they had hatched out.
With regard to food they were almost, or perhaps
quite, independent, spending most of the time
catching flies, grasshoppers, and other insects with
surprising dexterity ; but of the dangers encom-
passing the young rhea they knew absolutely
nothing. They wouid follow me about as if they
took me for their parent; and, whenever I imitated
the loud snorting or rasping warning-call emitted
by the old bird in moments of danger, they would
rush to me in the greatest terror, though no animal
86 The Naturalist in La Plata.

was in sight, and, squatting at my feet, endeavour
to conceal themselves by thrusting their heads and
long necks up my trousers. Jf I had caused a
person to dress in white or yellow clothes for several
consecutive days, and had then uttered the warning
cry each time he showed himself to the birds, I
have no doubt that they would soon have acquired a
habit of running in terror from him, even without
the warning. cry, and that the fear of a person in
white or yellow would have continued all their lives.

Up to within about twenty years ago, rheas were
seldom or never shot in La Plata and Patagonia,
but were always hunted on horseback and caught
with the bolas. The sight of a mounted man would
set them off at once, while a person on foot could
walk quite openly to within easy shooting distance
of them; yet their fear of a horseman dates only
two hundred years back—a very short time, when
we consider that, before the Indian borrowed the
horse from the invader, he must have systematically
pursued the rhea on foot for centuries. The rhea
changed its habits when the hunter changed his,
and now, if an estanciero puts down ostrich hunting
on his estate, ina very few years the birds, although
wild birds still, become as fearless and familiar
as domestic animals. I have known old and ill-
tempered males to become a perfect nuisance on
some estancias, running after and attacking every
person, whether on foot or on horseback, that
ventured near them. An old instinct of a whole
race could not be thus readily lost here and there
on isolated estates wherever a proprietor chose to
protect his birds for half a dozen years.
Fear wn Birds. 87

I suppose the Talegallus—the best-known brush-
turkey—must be looked on as an exception to all
other birds with regard to the point I am con-
sidering ; for this abnormal form buries its eggs in
the huge mound made by the male, and troubles
herself no more about them. When the young is
fully developed it simply kicks the coffin to pieces
in which its mother interred it, and, burrowing its
way up to the sunshine, enters on the pleasures and
pains of an independent existence from earliest
infancy—that is, if a species born into the world in
full possession of all the wisdom of the ancients, can
be said ever to know infancy. At all events, from
Mr. Bartlett’s observations on the young hatched
in the Zoological Gardens, it appears that they took
no notice of the old birds, but lived quite indepen-
dently from the moment they came out of the ground,
even flying up into a tree and roosting separately
at night. Tam not sure, however, that these ob-
servations are quite conclusive; for it is certain
that captivity plays strange pranks with the instincts
of some species, and it is just possible that in a
state of nature the old birds exercise at first some
slight parental supervision, and, like all other
species, have a peculiar cry to warn the young of the
dangers to be avoided. If this is not so, then the
young Talegallus must fly or hide with instinctive
fear from every living thing that approaches it. I,
at any rate, find it hard to believe that it has a
knowledge, independent of experience, of the
different habits of man and kangaroo, and dis-
criminates at first sight between animals that are
dangerous to it and those that are not. This
83 The Naturalist in La Plata.

interesting point will probably never be determined,
as, most unhappily, the Australians are just now
zealously engaged in exterminating their most
wonderful bird for the sake of its miserable flesh ;
and with less excuse than the Maories could plead
with regard to the moa, since they cannot deny
that they have mutton and rabbit enough to satisfy
hunger.

Whether birds fear or have instinctive knowledge
of any of their enemies is a much larger question.
Species that run freely on the ground from the time
of quitting the shell know their proper food, and
avoid whatever is injurious. Have all young birds
a similarly discriminating instinct with regard to
their enemies? Darwin says,‘‘ Fear of any particular
enemy is certainly an instinctive quality, as may be
seen in nestling birds.” Here, even man seems to
be included among the enemies feared instinctively ;
and in another passage he says, “ Young chickens
have lost, wholly from habit, that fear of the dog
and cat which, no doubt, was originally instinctive
in them.” My own observations point to a con-
trary conclusion; and I may say that I have had
unrivalled opportunities for studying the habits of
young birds.

Animals of all classes, old and young, shrink with
instinctive fear from any strange object approaching
them. A piece of newspaper carried accidentally
by the wind is as great an object of terror to an
inexperienced young bird as a buzzard sweeping
down with death in its talons. Among birds not
yet able to fly there are, however, some curious
exceptions; thus the young of most owls and
Fear in Birds. 89

pigeons are excited to anger rather than fear, and,
puffing themselves up, snap and strike at an intruder
with their beaks. Other fledglings simply shrink
down in the nest or squat close on the ground,
their fear, apparently, being in proportion to. the
suddenness with which the strange animal or object
comes on them; but, if the deadliest enemy ap-
proaches with slow caution, as snakes do—and
snakes must be very ancient enemies to birds—
there is no fear or suspicion shown, even when the
enemy is in full view and about to strike. This, it
will be understood, is when no warning-cry is
uttered by the parent bird. This shrinking, and,
in some cases, hiding from an object coming swiftly
towards them, is the “wildness” of young birds,
which, Darwin says again, is greater in wild than
in-domestic species. 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. But there
are many exceptions; and if this greater alertness
and activity is what is meant by “ wildness,’ then
the young of some wild birds—rhea, crested screamer,
&c.—are actually much tamer than our newly-
hatched chickens and ducklings.

To return to what may be seen in nestling birds.
When very young, and before their education has
well begun, if quietly approached and touched, they
open their bills and take food as readily from a man
90 The Naturalist in La Plata.

as from the parent bird. But if while being thus
fed the parent returns and emits the warning note,
they instantly cease their hunger-cries, close their
gaping mouths, and crouch down frightened in the
nest. This fear caused by the parent bird’s warn-
ing note begins to manifest itself even before the
young are hatched—and my observations on this
point refer to several species in three widely
separated orders. When the little prisoner is
hammering at its shell, and uttering its feeble peep,
as if begging to be let out, if the warning note
is uttered, even at a considerable distance, the
strokes and complaining instantly cease, and the
chick will then remain quiescent in the shell for
a long time, or until the parent, by a changed note,
conveys to it an intimation that the danger is over.
Another proof that the nestling has absolutely no
instinctive knowledge of particular enemies, but is
taught to fear them by the parents, is to be found
in the striking contrast between the habits of para-
sitical and genuine young in the nest, and after they
have left it, while still unable to find their own
food. I have had no opportunities of observing the
habits of the young cuckoo in England with regard
to this point, and do not know whether other ob-
servers have paid any attention to the matter or
not, but I am very familiar with the manners of the
parasitical starling or cow-bird of South America.
The warning cries of the foster parent have no effect
on the young cow-bird at anytime. Until they are
able to fly they will readily devour worms from the.
hand of a man, even when the old birds are hover-
ing close by and screaming their danger notes, and
Fear in Birds: QI

while their own young, if the parasite has allowed
any to survive in the nest, are crouching down in
the greatest fear. After the cow-bird has left the
nest it is still stupidly tame, and more than once I
have seen one carried off from its elevated perch by
a milvago hawk, when, if it had understood the
warning cry of the foster parent, it would have
dropped down into the bush or grass and escaped.
But as soon as the young cow-birds are able to shift
for themselves, and begin to associate with their
own kind, their habits change, and they become
suspicious and wild like other birds.

On this point—the later period at which the
parasitical young bird acquires fear of man—and
also bearing on the whole subject under discussion,
I shall add here some observations I once made on
a dove hatched and reared by a pigeon at my home
on the pampas. A very large ombu tree grew not
far from the dove-cote, and some of the pigeons
used to make their nests on the lower horizontal
branches. One summer a dove of the most common
species, Zenaida maculata, in size a third less than
the domestic pigeon, chanced to drop an egg in one
of these nests, and a young dove was hatched and
reared; and, in due time, when able to fly, it was
brought to the dove-cote. I watched ita great deal,
and it was evident that this foster-young, though
with the pigeons, was not nor ever would be of them,
for it could not take kindly to their flippant flirty
ways. Whenever a male approached it, and with
guttural noises and strange gestures made a pom-
pous declaration of amorous feelings, the dove
would strike vigorously at its undesirable lover,
92 The Naturalist in La Plata.

and drive him off, big as he was; and, as a
rule, it would sit apart, a foot or so, from the others.
The dove was also a male; butits male companions,
with instinct tainted by domestication, were igno-
rant alike of its sex and different species. Now, it
chanced that my pigeons, never being fed and
always finding their own living on the plain like
wild birds, were, although still domestic, not nearly
so tame as pigeons usually are in England. They
would not allow a person to approach within two
or three yards of them without flying, and if grain
was thrown to them they would come to it very
suspiciously, or not at all. And, of course, the
young pigeons always acquired the exact degree of
suspicion shown by the adults as soon as they were
able to fly and consort with the others. But the
foundling Zenaida did not know what their startled
gestures and notes of fear meant when a person
approached too near, and as he saw none of his own
kind, he did not acquire their suspicious habit. On
the contrary, he was perfectly tame, although by
parentage a wild bird, and showed no more fear of a
man than of a horse. Throughout the winter it
remained with the pigeons, going afield every day
with them, and returning to the dove-cote; but as
spring approached the slight tie which united him
to them began to be loosened; their company grew
less and less congenial, and he began to lead a
solitary life. But he did not go to the trees yet.
He came to the house, and his favourite perch was
on the low overhanging roof of a vine-covered porch,
just over the main entrance. Here he would pass
several hours every day, taking no notice of the
fear wn Birds. 93

people-passing in and out at all times; and when
the weather grew warm he would swell out his
breast and coo mournfully by the hour for our
pleasure.

We can, no doubt, learn best by observing the
behaviour of nestlings and young birds; neverthe-
less, I find much even in the confirmed habits of
adults to strengthen me in the belief that fear of
particular enemies is in nearly all cases—for I will
not say all—the result of experience and tradition.

Hawks are the most open, violent, and persistent
enemies birds have; and it is really wonderful to
see how well the persecuted kinds appear to know
the power for mischief possessed by different rap-
torial species, and how exactly the amount of alarm
exhibited is in proportion to the extent of the danger
to be apprehended. Some raptors never attack
birds, others only occasionally ; still others prey only
on the young and feeble; and, speaking of La Plata
district, where I have observed hawks, from the
milvyago chimango—chiefly a carrion-eater—to the
destructive peregrine falcon, there is a very great
variety of predatory habits, and all degrees of cou-
rage to be found; yet all these raptors are treated
differently by species lable to be preyed on, and
have just as much respect paid them as their
strength and daring entitles them to, and no more.
So much discrimination must seem almost incredible
to those who are not very familiar with the manners
of wild birds; I do not think it could exist if
the fear shown resulted from instinct or inherited
habit. There would be no end to the blunders of
1

94 The Naturalist in La Plata.

such an instinct as that ; and in regions where hawks
are extremely abundant most of the birds would be
in a constant state of trepidation. On the pampas
the appearance of the comparatively harmless
chimango excites not the least alarm among small
birds, yet at a distance it closely resembles a hen-
harrier, and it also readily attacks young, sick, and
wounded birds; all others know how little they
have to fear fromit. When it appears unexpectedly,
sweeping over a hedge or grove with a rapid flight,
it is sometimes mistaken for a more dangerous
species; there is then a little flutter of alarm, some
birds springing into the air, but in two or three
seconds of time they discover their mistake, and
settle down quietly again, taking no further notice
of the despised carrion-eater. On the other hand,
T have frequently mistaken a harrier (Circus cinereus,
in the brown state of plumage) for a chimango, and
have only discovered my mistake by seeing the com-
motion among the small birds. The harrier I have
mentioned, also the C. macropterus, feed partly on
small birds, which they flush from the ground and
strike down with their claws. When the harrier
appears moving along with a loitering flight near
the surface, it is everywhere attended by a little
whirlwind of alarm, small birds screaming or chirp-
ing excitedly and diving into the grass or bushes;
but the alarm does not spread far, and subsides as
soon as the hawk has passed on its way. Buzzards
(Buteo and Urubitinga) are much more feared, and
create a more widespread alarm, and they are
certainly more destructive to birds than harriers.
Another curious instance is that of the sociable
Fear in Birds. 95

hawk (Rostrhamus sociabilis). This bird spends the
summer and breeds in marshes in La Plata, and
birds pay no attention to it, for it feeds exclusively
on water-snails (Ampullaria). But when it visits
woods and plantations to roost, during migration,
its appearance creates as much alarm as that of a
true buzzard, which it closely resembles. Wood-
birds, unaccustomed to see it, do not know its
peculiar preying habits, and how little they need
fear its presence. I may also mention that the birds
of La Plata seem to fear the kite-like Hlanus less
than uther hawks, and I believe that its singular
resemblance to the common gull of the district in
its size, snowy-white plumage and manner of
flight, has a deceptive effect on most species, and
makes them so little suspicious of it.

The wide-ranging peregrine falcon is a common
species in La Plata, although, oddly enough, not
included in any notice of the avifauna of that re-
gion before 1888. The consternation caused among
birds by its appearance is vastly greater than that
produced by any of the raptors I have mentioned ;
and itis unquestionably very much more destruc-
tive to birds, since it preys exclusively on them,
and, as a rule, merely picks the flesh from the head
and neck, and leaves the untouched body to its
jackal, the carrion-hawk. When the peregrine
appears speeding through the air in a straight line
at a great height, the feathered world, as far as one
is able to see, is thrown into the greatest commo-
tion, all birds, from the smallest up to species large
as duck, ibis, and curlew, rushing about in the air
as if distracted. When the falcon has disappeared
96 The Naturalist in La Plata.

in the sky, and the wave of terror attending its
progress subsides behind it, the birds still continue
wild and excited for some time, showing how
deeply they have been moved; for, as a rule, fear
is exceedingly transitory in its effects on animals.
I must, before concluding this part of my sub-
ject, mention another raptor, also a true falcon,
but differing from the peregrine in being exclusively
a marsh-hawk. In size it is nearly a third less
than the male peregrine, which it resembles in its
sharp wings and manner of flight, but its flight is
much more rapid. The whole plumage is uni-
formly of a dark grey colour. Unfortunately,
though I have observed it not fewer than a hun-
dred times, I have never been able to procure
a specimen, nor do I find that it is like any
American falcon already described ; so that for the
present it must remain nameless. Judging solely
from the effect produced by the appearance of this
hawk, it must be even more daring and destructive
than its larger relation, the peregrine. It flies at
a great height, and sometimes descends vertically
and with extraordinary velocity, the wings pro-
ducing a sound like a deep-toned horn. The sound
is doubtless produced at will, and is certainly less
advantageous to the hawk than to the birds it
pursues. No doubt it can afford to despise the
wing-power of its quarry; and I have sometimes
thought that it takes a tyrannous delight in wit-
nessing the consternation caused by its hollow
trumpeting sound. This may be only a fancy, but
some hawks do certainly take pleasure in pursuing
and striking birds when not seeking prey. The
Fear wn Birds. 97

peregrine has been observed, Baird says, capturing
birds, only to kill and drop them. Many of the
Felide, we know, evince a similar habit ; only these
prolong their pleasure by practising a more refined
and deliberate cruelty.

The sudden appearance overhead of this hawk
produces an effect wonderful to witness. I have
frequently seen all the inhabitants of a marsh
struck with panic, acting as if demented, and sud-
denly grown careless to all other dangers; and on
such occasions I have looked up confident of seeing
the sharp-winged death suspended above them in
the sky. All birds that happen to be on the wing
drop down as if shot into the reeds or water; ducks
away from the margin stretch out their necks
horizontally and drag their bodies, as if wounded,
into closer cover; not one bird is found bold
enough to rise up and wheel about the marauder—
a usual proceeding in the case of other hawks;
while, at every sudden stoop the falcon makes,
threatening to dash down on his prey, alow cry of
terror rises from the birds beneath; a sound ex-
pressive of an emotion so contagious that it quickly
runs like a murmur all over the marsh, as if a
gust of wind had swept moaning through the
rushes. As long as the falcon hangs overhead,
always at a height of about forty yards, threatening
at intervals to dash down, this murmuring sound,
made up of many hundreds of individual: cries, is
heard swelling and dying away, and occasionally,
when he drops lower than usual, rising to a sharp
scream of terror.

Sometimes when I have been riding over marshy
H
98 The Naturalist in La Plata.

ground, one of these hawks has placed himself
directly over my head, within fifteen or twenty
yards of me; and it has perhaps acquired the habit
of following a horseman in this way in order to
strike at any birds driven up. On one occasion
my horse almost trod on a couple of snipe squatting
terrified in the short grass. The instant they rose
the hawk struck at one, the end of his wing violently
smiting my cheek as he stooped, and striking at
the snipe on a level with the knees of my horse.
The snipe escaped by diving under the bridle, and
immediately dropped down on the other side of me,
and the hawk, rising up, flew away.

To return. I think I am justified in believing that
fear of hawks, like fear of men, is, in very nearly
all cases, the result of experience and tradition.
Nevertheless, I think it probable that in some
species which have always lived in the open, con-
tinually exposed to attack, and which are preferred
as food by raptors, such as duck, snipe, and
plover, the fear of the falcon may be an inherited
habit. Among passerine birds I am also inclined
to think that swallows show inherited fear of hawks.
Swallows and humming-birds have least to fear
from raptors; yet, while humming-birds readily
pursue and tease hawks, thinking as little of them
as of pigeons or herons, swallows everywhere mani-
fest the greatest terror at’ the approach of a true
falcon; and they also fear other birds of prey,
though in a much less degree. It has been said
that the European hobby occasionally catches swal-
lows on the wing, but this seems a rare and ex-
ceptional habit, and in South America I have
fear in Birds. 99

never seen any bird of prey attempt the pursuit of
a swallow. The question then arises, how did this
unnecessary fear, so universal in swallows, origi-
nate? Can it be a survival of a far past—a time
when some wide-ranging small falcon, aérial in
habits as the swallow itself, preyed by preference on
hirundines only ?

[Nore.—Herbert Spencer, who accepts Darwin’s inference, ex-
plains how the fear of man, acquired by experience, becomes instinc-
tive in birds, in the following passage : ‘‘ It is well known that in
newly-discovered lands not inhabited by man, birds are so devoid
of fear as to allow themselves to be knucked over with sticks ;
but that, in the course of generations, they acquire such a dread
of man as to fly on his approach: and that this dread is mani-
fested by young as well as by old. Now unless this change be
ascribed to the killing-off of the least fearful, and the preservation
and multiplication of the most fearful which, considering the
comparatively small number killed by man, .is an inadequate
cause, ib must be ascribed to accumulated experience; and each
experience must be held to have a share in producing it. We
must conclude that in each bird that escapes with injuries in-
flicted by man, or is alarmed by the outcries of other members
of the flock (gregarious creatures of any intelligence being neces-
sarily more or less sympathetic), there is established an association
of ideas between the human aspect and the pains, direct and in-
direct, suffered from human agency. And we must further con-
clude, that the state of consciousness which compels the bird to
take flight, is at first nothing more than an ideal reproduction of
those painful impressions which before followed man’s approach ;
that such ideal reproduction becomes more vivid and more massive
as the painful experiences, direct or sympathetic, increase; and
that thus the emotion, in its incipient state, is nothing else than
an aggregation of the revived pains before experience.

“As, in the course of generations, the young birds of this race
begin to display a fear of man before yet they have been injured
by him, it is an unavoidable inference that the nervous system
of the race has been organically modified by these experiences,
we have no choice but to conclude, that when a young bid is led
100 The Naturalist in La Plata.

to fly, it is because the impression produced in its senses by the
approaching man entails, through an incipiently reflex action, a
partial exciterment of all those nerves which in its ancestors had
been excited under the like conditions ; that this partial excitement
has its accompanying painful consciousness, and that the vague
painful consciousness thus arising constitutes emotion proper—
emotion undecomposable into specific experiences, and, therefore,
seemingly homogeneous.” (Tissays, vol. i. p. 320.)

It is comforting to know that the ‘‘ unavoidable inference ” is,
after all, erroneous, and that the nervous system in birds has not
yet been organically altered as a result of man’s persecution ; for
in that case it would take long tou undo the mischief, and we
should be indeed far from that “ better friendship” with the
children of the air which many of us would like to see.
CHAPTER VI.
PARENTAL AND EARLY INSTINCTS.

Unprr this heading I have put together several
notes from my journals on subjects which have no
connection with each other, except that they relate
chiefly to the parental instincts of some animals I
have observed, and to the instincts of the young
at a very early period of life.

While taking bats one day in December, I cap-
tured a female of our common Buenos Ayrean
species (Molossus bonariensis), with her two
young attached to her, so large that it seemed
incredible she should be able to fly and take insects
with such a weight to drag her down. The young
were about a third less in size than the mother, so
that she had to carry a weight greatly exceeding
that of her own body. They were fastened to her
breast and belly, one on each side, as when first
born; and, possibly, the young bat does not change
its position, or move, like the young developed
opossum, to other parts of the body, until
mature enough to begin an independent life.
On forcibly separating them from their parent, I
found that they were not yet able to fly, but when
set free fluttered feebly to the ground. This bat
certainly appeared more burdened with its young
102 The Naturalist in La Plata.

than any animal I had ever observed. I have seen
an old female opossum (Didelphys azar) with
eleven young, large as old rats—the mother being
less than a cat in size—all clinging to various
parts of her body; yet able to climb swiftly and
with the greatest agility in the higher branches of
a tree. The actual weight was in this case rela-

x

 

Didelphys azare and young.

tively much greater than in that of the female bat ;
but then the opossum never quitted its hold on
the tree, and it also supplemented its hand-like
feet, furnished with crooked claws, with its teeth
and long prehensile tail. The poor bat had to
seek its living in the empty air, pursuing its prey
with the swiftness of a swallow, and it seemed
Parental and Early Instincts. 103

wonderful to me that she should have been able to
carry about that great burden with her one pair of
wings, and withal to be active enough to supply
herself and her young with food.

In the end I released her, and saw her fly away
and disappear among the trees, after which I put
back the two young bats in the place I had taken
them from, among the thick-clustering foliage of a
small acacia tree. When set free they began to
work their way upwards through the leaves and
slender twigs in the most adroit manner, catching
a twig with their teeth, then embracing a whole
cluster of leaves with their wings, just as a person
would take up a quantity of loose clothes and hold
them tight by pressing them against the chest.
The body would then emerge above the clasped
leaves, and a higher twig would be caught by the
teeth ; and so on successively, until they had got
as high as they wished, when they proceeded to
hook themselves to a twig and assume the inverted
position side by side ; after which, one drew in its
head and went to sleep, while the other began
licking the end of its wing, where my finger and
thumb had pressed the delicate membrane. Later
in the day I attempted to feed them with small
insects, but they rejected my friendly attentions in
the most unmistakable manner, snapping viciously
at me every time I approached them. In the
evening, I stationed myself close to the tree, and
presently had the satisfaction of seeing the mother
return, flying straight to the spot where I had
taken her, and in a few moments she was away
again and over the trees with her twins.
104 The Naturalist in La Plata.

Assuming that these two young bats had, before
I found them, existed like parasites clinging to the
parent, their adroit actions when liberated, and
their angry demonstrations at my approach, were
very astonishing; for in all other mammals born
in a perfectly helpless state, like rodents, weasels,
edentates, and even marsupials, the instincts of
self-preservation are gradually developed after the
period of activity begins, when the mother leads
them out, and they play with her and with each
other. In the bat the instincts must ripen to per-
fection without exercise or training, and while the
animal exists as passively as a fruit on its stem.

I have observed that the helpless young of some
of the mammals I have just mentioned seem at first
to have no instinctive understanding of the lan-
guage of alarm and fear in the parent, as all young
birds have, even before their eyes are open. Nor
is it necessary that they should have such an
instinct, since, in most cases, they are well con-
cealed in kennels or other safe places; but when,
through some accident, they are exposed, the want
of such an instinct makes the task of protecting
them doubly hard for the parent. J once surprised
a weasel (Galictis barbara) in the act of removing
her young, or conducting them, rather; and when
she was forced to quit them, although still keeping
close by, and uttering the most piercing cries of
anger and solicitude, the young continued piteously
crying out in their shrill voices and moving about
in circles, without making the slightest attempt to
escape, or to conceal themselves, as young birds

do.
Parental and Early Instincts. 105

Some field mice breed on the surface of the
ground in ill-constructed nests, and their young
are certainly the most helpless things in nature. It
is possible that where this dangerous habit exists,
the parent has some admirable complex instincts
to safeguard her young, in addition to the ordinary
instincts of most animals of this kind. This idea
was suggested to me by the action of a female
mouse which J witnessed by chance. While walk-
ing in a field of stubble one day in autumn, near
Buenos Ayres, I suddenly heard, issuing from near
my feet, a chorus of shrill squealing voices—the
familiar excessively sharp little needles of sound
emitted by young, blind and naked mice, when
they are disturbed or in pain. Looking down, I
saw close to my foot a nest of them—there were
nine in all, wriggling about and squealing ; for the
parent, frightened at my step, had just sprung
from them, overturning in her hurry to escape the
slight loosely-felted dome of fine grass and thistle-
down which had covered them. I saw her running
away, but after going six or seven yards she
stopped, and, turning partly round so as to watch
me, waited in fear and trembling. I remained
perfectly motionless—a sure way to allay fear and
suspicion in any wild creature,—and in a few
moments she returned, but with the utmost caution,
frequently pausing to start and tremble, and masking
her approach with corn stumps and little imequali-
ties in the surface of the ground, until, reaching
the nest, she took one of the young in her mouth,
and ran rapidly away to a distance of eight or nine
yards and concealed it in a tuft of dry grass.
106 The Naturalist in La Plata.

Leaving it, she returned a second time, in the same
cautious manner, and taking another, ran with it to
the same spot, and concealed it along with the first.
It was curious that the first young mouse had
continued squealing after being hidden by the
mother, for I could hear it distinctly, the air being
very still, but when the second mouse had been
placed with it, the squealing ceased. A third time
the old mouse came, and then instead of going to
the same spot, as I had expected, she ran off in an
opposite direction and disappeared among the dry
weeds; a fourth was carried to the same place as
the third; and in this way they were all removed
to a distance of some yards from the nest, and
placed in couples, until the last and odd one
remained. In due time she came for it, and ran
away with it in a new direction, and was soon out
of sight; and although I waited fully ten minutes,
she did not return; nor could I afterwards find any
of the young mice when I looked for them, or even
hear them squeal.

Ihave frequently observed newly-born lambs on
the pampas, and have never failed to be surprised
at the extreme imbecility they display in their
actions; although this may be due partly to
inherited degeneracy caused by domestication.
This imbecile condition continues for two, some-
times for three days, during which time the lamb
apparently acts purely from instincts, which are far
from perfect; but after that, experience and its
dam teach it a better way. When born its first
impulse is to struggle up on to its feet; its second
Parental and Early Instincts. 107

to suck, but here it does not discriminate like the
newly-hatched bird that picks up its proper food,
for it does not know what to suck. It will take
into its mouth whatever comes near, in most cases
a tuft of wool on its dam’s neck ; and at this it
will continue sucking for an indefinite time. It is
highly probable that the strong-smelling secretion
of the sheep’s udder attracts the lamb at length to
that part; and that without something of the kind
to guide it, in many cases it would actually starve
without finding the teats. I have often seen lambs
many hours after birth still coufining their attention
to the most accessible locks of wool on the neck or
fore legs of the dams, and believe that in such
cases the long time it took them to find the source
of nourishment arose from a defective sense of
smell. Its next important instinct, which comes
into play from the moment it can stand on its feet,
impels it to follow after any object receding from
it, and, on the other hand, to run from anything
approaching it. If the dam turns round and
approaches it from even a very short distance, it
will start back and run from her in fear, and will
not understand her voice when she bleats to it: at
the same time it will confidently follow after a man,
dog, horse, or any other animal moving from it. A
very common experience on the pampas, in the sheep-
country, is to see a lamb start up from sleep and
follow the rider, running along close to the heels of
the horse. This is distressing to a merciful man,
for he cannot shake the little simpleton off, and if
he rides on, no matter how fast, it will keep up
with him, or keep him in sight, for half a mile or a
108 The Naturalist in La Platz.

mile, and never recover its dam. The gaucho, who
is not merciful, frequently saves himself all trouble
and delay by knocking it senseless with a blow of
his whip-handle, and without checking his horse, ,
IT have seen a lamb, about two days old, start up
from sleep, and immediately start off in pursuit of
a puffball about as big as a man’s head, carried
past it over the smooth turf by the wind, and
chase it for a distance of five hundred yards, until
the dry ball was brought to a stop by a tuft of
coarse grass. This blundering instinct is quickly
laid aside when the lamb has learned to distinguish
its dam from other objects, and its dam’s voice from
other sounds. When four or five days old it will
start from sleep, but instead of rushing blindly away
after any receding object, it first looks about it, and
will then recognize and run to its dam.

I have often been struck with the superiority of
the pampa or creolla—the old native breed of sheep
—in the greater vigour of the young when born over
the improved European varieties. The pampa
descends to us from the first sheep introduced into
La Plata about three centuries ago, and is a tall,
gaunt bony animal, with lean dry flesh, like venison,
and long straight wool, like goats’ hair. In their
struggle for existence in a country subject to sudden
great changes of temperature, to drought, and fail-
ure of grass, they have in a great measure lost the
qualities which make the sheep valuable to man as
a food and wool-producing animal; but on the
other hand they have to some extent recovered the
vigour of a wild animal, being hardy enough to
exist without any shelter, and requiring from their
Parental and Early Instincts. 109

master man only protection from the larger car-
nivores. They are keen-scented, swift of foot and
wonderfully active, and thrive where other breeds
would quickly starve. I have often seen a lamb
dropped on the frosty ground in bitterly cold windy
weather in midwinter, and in less than five seconds
struggle to its feet, and seem as vigorous as any
day-old lamb of other breeds. The dam, impatient

 

Pampa shecp.

at the short delay, and not waiting to give it suck,
has then started off at a brisk trot after the flock,
scattered and galloping before the wind like huana-
cos rather than sheep, with the lamb, scarcely a
minute in the world, running freely at her side.
Notwithstanding its great vigour it has been proved
that the pampa sheep has not so far outgrown the
domestic taint as to be able to maintain its own
existence when left entirely to itself. During the
TIO The Naturalist in La Plata.

first half of this century, when cattle-breeding
began to be profitable, and wool was not worth the
trouble of shearing, and the gaucho workman
would not eat mutton when beef was to be had,
some of the estancieros on the southern pampas
determined to get rid of their sheep, which were of
no value to them; and many flocks were driven a
distance out and lost in the wilds. Out of many
thousands thus turned loose to shift for themselves,
not one pair. survived to propagate a new race of
feral sheep; in a short time pumas, wild dogs, and
other beasts of prey, had destroyed them all. The
sterling qualities of the pampa sheep had their
value in other times; at present the improved kinds
are alone considered worth having, and the original
sheep of the country is now rapidly disappearing,
though still found in remote and poor districts,
especially in the province of Cordova; and probably
before long it will become extinct, together with
the curious pug-nosed cow of the pampas.

I have had frequent opportunities of observing
the young, from one to three days old, of the
Cervus campestris—the common deer of the pampas,
and the perfection of its instincts at that tender age
seem very wonderful in a ruminant. When the
doe with fawn is approached by a horseman, even
when accompanied with dogs, she stands perfectly
motionless, gazing fixedly at the enemy, the fawn
motionless at her side; and suddenly, as if at a
preconcerted signal, the fawn rushes directly away
from her at its utmost speed; and going to a dis-
tance of six hundred to a thousand yards conceals
 

Doe safeguarding young.
Parental and Early Instincts. It!

itself in a hollow in the ground or among the long
grass, lying down very close with neck stretched
out horizontally, and will thus remain until sought
by the dam. When very young if found in its
hiding-place it will allow itself to be taken, making
no further effort to escape. After the fawn has
run away the doe still maintains her statuesque
attitude, as if resolved to await the onset, and
only when the dogs are close to her she also rushes
away, but invariably in a direction as nearly
opposite to that taken by the fawn as possible. At
first she runs slowly, with a limping gait, and fre-
quently pausing, as if to entice her enemies on, like
a partridge, duck or plover when driven from its
young; but as they begin to press her more closely
her speed increases, becoming greater the further
she succeeds in leading them from the starting-
point.

The alarm-cry of this deer is a peculiar whistling
bark, a low but far-reaching sound; but when
approaching a doe with young I have never been
able to hear it, nor have I seen any movement on
the part of the doe. Yet it is clear that in some
mysterious way she inspires the fawn with sudden
violent fear ; while the fawn, on its side, instead of
being affected like the young in other mammals,
and sticking closer to its mother, acts in a contrary
way, and runs from her.

Of the birds I am acquainted with, the beautiful
jacana (Parra jacana) appears to come into the
world with its faculties and powers in the most

advanced state. It is, in fact, ready to begin active
I
112 The Naturalist in La Plata.

life from the very moment of leaving the shell, as I
once accidentally observed. I found a nest on a
small mound of earth in a shallow lagoon, contain-
ing four eggs, with the shells already chipped by
the birds in them. ‘Two yards from the small nest
mound there was a second mound covered with
coarse grass. I got off my horse to examine the
nest, and the old birds, excited beyond measure,
fluttered round me close by pouring out their shrill
rapidly-reiterated cries in an unbroken stream,
sounding very much like a policeman’s rattle. While
I was looking closely at'one of the eggs lying on
the palm of my hand, all at once the cracked shell
parted, and at the same moment the young bird
leaped from my hand and fell into the water. I
am quite sure that the young bird’s sudden escape
from the shell and my hand was the result of a
violent effort on its part to free itself; and it was
doubtless inspired to make the effort by the loud
persistent screaming of the parent birds, which it
heard while in the shell. Stooping to pick it up to
save it from perishing, I soon saw that my assistance
was not required, for immediately on dropping into
the water, it put out its neck, and with the body
nearly submerged, like a wounded duck trying to
escape observation, it swam rapidly to the second
small mound I have mentioned, and, escaping from
the water, concealed itself in the grass, lying close
and perfectly motionless like a young plover.

In the case of the pampa or creolla sheep, I have
shown that during its long, rough life in La Plata,
this variety has in some measure recovered the
natural vigour and ability to maintain existence in
Parental and Early Instincts. 113

adverse circumstances of its wild ancestors. As
much can be said of the creolla fowl of the pampas ;
and some observations of mine on the habits of this
variety will perhaps serve to throw light on a vexed
question of Natural History—namely, the cackling
of the hen after laying, an instinct which has been
described as ‘‘ useless” and “ disadvantageous.”
In fowls that live unconfined, and which are allowed
to lay where they like, the instinct, as we know it,
is certainly detrimental, since egg-eating dogs and
pigs soon learn the cause of the outcry, and acquire
a habit of rushing off to find the egg when they hear
it. ‘he question then arises: Does the wild jungle
fowl possess the same pernicious instinct ?

The creolla is no doubt the descendant of the
fowl originally introduced about three centuries ago
by the first colonists in La Plata, and has probably
not only been uncrossed with any other improved
variety, such as are now fast taking its place, and
has lived a much freer life than is usual with the
fowl in Europe. Itisa rather small, lean, extremely
active bird, lays about a dozen eggs, and hatches
them all, and is of a yellowish red colour—a hue
which is common, I believe, in the old barn-door
fowl of England. The creolla fowl is strong on the
wing, and much more carnivorous and rapacious in
habits than other breeds ; mice, frogs, and small
snakes are eagerly hunted and devoured by it. At
my home on the pampas a number of these fowls
were kept, and were allowed to range freely about
the plantation, which was large, and the adjacent
grounds, where there were thickets of giant cardoon
thistle, red-weed, thorn apple, &c. They always
114 The Naturalist in La Plata.

nested at a distance from the house, and it was
almost impossible ever to find their eggs, on account
of the extreme circumspection they observed in
going to and from their nests; and when they
succeeded in escaping foxes, skunks, weasels, and
opossums, which, strange to say, they often did,
they would rear their chickens away out of sight
and hearing of the house, and only bring them home
when winter deprived them of their leafy covering
and made food scarce. During the summer, in my
rambles about the plantation, I would occasionally
surprise one of these half-wild hens with her brood ;
her distracted screams and motions would then
cause her chicks to scatter and vanish in all direc-
tions, and, until the supposed danger was past, they
would lie as close and well-concealed as young
partridges. These fowls in summer always lived in
small parties, each party composed of one cock and
as many hens as he could collect—usually three or
four. Hach family occupied its own feeding ground,
where it would pass a greater portion of each day.
The hen would nest at a considerable distance from
the feeding ground, sometimes as far as four or five
hundred yards away. After laying an egg she would
quit the nest, not walking from it as other fowls do,
but flying, the flight extending to a distance of from
fifteen to about fifty yards; after which, still keeping
silence, she would walk or run, until, arrived at the
feeding ground, she would begin to cackle. At once
the cock, if within hearing, would utter a responsive
cackle, whereupon she would run to him and cacklo
no more. Frequently the cackling call-note would
not be uttered more than two or three times, some-
Parental and Early Instincts. 115

times only once, and in a much lower tone than in
fowls of other breeds.

If we may assume that these fowls, in their long,
semi-independent existence in La Plata, have re-
verted to the original instincts of the wild Gallus
bankiva, we can see here how advantageous the
cackling instinct must be in enabling the hen in
dense tropical jungles to rejoin the flock after laying
an ego. If there are egg-eating animals in the
jungle intelligent enough to discover the meaning of
such a short, subdued cackling call, they would still
be unable to find the nest by going back on the
bird’s scent, since she flies from the nest in the
first place; and the wild bird probably flies further
than the creolla hen of La Plata. The clamorous
cackling of our fowls would appear then to be
nothing more than a perversion of a very useful
instinct.
CHAPTER VII.
THE MEPHITIC SKUNK.

It might possibly give the reader some faint con-
ception of the odious character of this creature (for
adjectives are weak to describe it) when I say that,
in talking to strangers from abroad, I have never
thought it necessary to speak of sunstroke, jaguars,
or the assassin’s knife, but have never omitted to
warn them of the skunk, minutely describing its
habits and personal appearance.

T knew an Englishman who, on taking a first
gallop across the pampas, saw one, and, quickly
dismounting, hurled himself bodily on to it to effect
its capture. Poor man! he did not know that the
little animal is never unwilling to be caught. Men
have been blinded for ever by a discharge of the
fiery liquid full in their faces. On a mucous mem-
brane it burns like sulphuric acid, say the unfortu-
nates who have had the experience. How does
nature protect the skunk itself from the injurious
effects of its potent fluid? I have not unfrequently
found individuals stone-blind, sometimes moving
so briskly about that the blindness must have been
of long standing—very possibly in some cases an
accidental drop discharged by the animal itself has
caused the loss of sight. When coming to close
The Mephetie Skunk. 117

quarters with a skunk, by covering up the face,
one’s clothes only are ruined. But this is not all one
has to fear from an encounter; the worst is that
effuvium, after which crushed garlic is lavender,
which tortures the olfactory nerves, and appears to
pervade the whole system like a pestilent ether,
nauseating one until sea-sickness seems almost a
pleasant sensation in comparison.

To those who know the skunk only from reputa-
tion, my words might seem too strong; many,
however, who have come to close quarters with the
little animal will think them ridiculously weak.
And consider what must the feelings be of one who
has had the following experience—not an uncommon
experience on the pampas. There is to be a dance
at a neighbouring house a few miles away; he
has been looking forward to it, and, dressing himself
with due care, mounts his horse and sets out full of
joyous anticipations. It is a dark windy evening,
but there is a convenient bridle-path through the
dense thicket of giant thistles, and striking it he puts
his horse into a swinging gallop. Unhappily the
path is already occupied by a skunk, invisible in the
darkness, that, in obedience to the promptings of
its insane instinct, refuses to get out of it, until the
flying hoofs hit it and send it like a well-kicked
football into the thistles. But the forefoot of the
horse, up as high as his knees perhaps, have been
sprinkled, and the rider, after coming out into the
open, dismounts and walks away twenty yards from
his animal, and literally smells himself all over, and
with a feeling of profound relief pronounces himself
clean. Not the minutest drop of the diabolical spray
118 The Naturalist in La Plata.

has touched his dancing shoes! Springing into the
saddle he proceeds to his journey’s end, is warmly
welcomed by his host, and speedily forgetting his
slight misadventure, mingles with a happy crowd of
friends. Ina little while people begin exchanging
whispers and significant glances; men are seen
smiling at nothing in particular ; the hostess wears
a clouded face; the ladies cough and put their
scented handkerchiefs to their noses, and presently
they begin to feel faint and retire from the room.
Our hero begins to notice that there is something
wrong, and presently discovers its cause; he, un-
happily, has been the last person in the room to
remark that familiar but most abominable odour,
rising like a deadly exhalation from the floor, con-
quering all other odours, and every moment becom-
ing more powerful. A drop has touched his shoe
after all; and fearing to be found out, and edging
towards the door, he makes his escape, and is
speedily riding home again; knowing full well that
his sudden and early departure from the scene will
be quickly discovered and set down to the right
cause. .

In that not always trustworthy book The Natural
History of Chili, Molina tells us how they deal with
the animal in the trans-Andine regions. ‘“ When
one appears,” he says, “‘ some of the company begin
by caressing it, until an opportunity offers for one
of them to seize it by the tail. In this position the
muscles become contracted, the animal is unable to
eject its fluid, and is quickly despatched.” One
might just as well talk of caressing a cobra de
capello ; yet this laughable fiction finds believers
The Mephitic Skunk. 119

all over South and North America. Professor
Baird gravely introduces it into his great work on
the mammalia. I was once talking about animals
in a rancho, when a person present (an Argentine
officer) told that, while visiting an Indian encamp-
ment, he had asked the savages how they contrived
to kill skunks without making even a life in the
desert intolerable. A grave old Cacique informed
him that the secret was to go boldly up to the
animal, take it by the tail, and despatch it; for, he
said, when you fear it not at all, then it respects
your courage and dies like a lamb—sweetly. The
officer, continuing his story, said that on quitting
the Indian camp he started a skunk, and, glad of an
opportunity to test the truth of what he had heard,
dismounted and proceeded to put the Indian plan
in practice. Here the story abruptly ended, and
when I eagerly demanded to hear the sequel, the
amateur hunter of furs lit a cigarette and vacantly
watched the ascending smoke. The Indians are
grave jokers, they seldom smile; and this old tra-
ditional skunk-joke, which has run the length of a
continent, finding its way into many wise books, is
their revenge on a superior race.

I have shot a great many eagles, and occasionally
a carancho (Polyborus tharus), with the plumage
smelling strongly of skunk, which shows that these
birds, pressed by hunger, often commit the fearful
mistake of attacking the animal. My friend Mr.
Ernest Gibson, of Buenos Ayres, in a communica-
tion to the Ibis, describes an encounter he actually
witnessed between a carancho andaskunk. Riding
home one afternoon, he spied a skunk “ shuffling
120 The Naturalist in La Plata.

along in the erratic manner usual to that odorifer-
ous quadruped ;” following it at a very short
distance was an eagle-vulture, evidently bent on mis-
chief. Every time the bird came near the bushy
tail rose menacingly ; then the carancho would fall
behind, and, after a few moments’ hesitation, follow
on again. At length, growing bolder, it sprung
forward, seizing the threatening tail with its claw,
but immediately after ‘ began staggering about with
dishevelled plumage, tearful eyes, and a profoundly
woe-begone expression on its vulture face. The
skunk, after turning and regarding its victim with
an I-told-you-so look for a few moments, trotted
unconcernedly off.”

I was told in Patagonia by a man named Molinos,
who was frequently employed by the Government as
guide to expeditions in the desert, that everywhere
throughout that country the skunk is abundant.
Some years ago he was sent with two other men to
find and treat with an Indian chief whose where-
abouts were not known. Far in the interior Molinos
was overtaken by a severe winter, his horses died of
thirst and fatigue, and during the three bitterest
months of the year he kept himself and his followers
alive by eating the flesh of skunks, the only wild
animal that never failed them. No doubt, on those
vast sterile plains where the skunk abounds, and
goes about by day and by night careless of enemies,
the terrible nature of its defensive weapon is the
first lesson experience teaches to every young eagle,
fox, wild cat, and puma. .

Dogs kill skunks when made to do so, but it is
not a sport they delight in. One moonlight night,
The Mephitic Skunk. rai

at home, I went out to where the dogs, twelve in
number, were sleeping: while I stood there a
skunk appeared and deliberately came towards
me, passing through the dogs where they lay,
and one by one as he passed them they rose
up, and, with their tails between their legs,
skulked off. When made to kill skunks often
they become seasoned; but always perform the
loathsome task expeditiously, then rush away with
frothing mouths to rub their faces in the wet
clay and rid themselves of the fiery sensation. At
one time I possessed only one dog that could be
made to face a skunk, and as the little robbers were
very plentiful, and continually coming about the
house in their usual open, bold way, it was rather
hard for the poor brute. This dog detested them
quite as strongly as the others, only he was more
obedient, faithful, and brave. Whenever I bade
him attack one of them he would come close up to
me and look up into my face with piteous pleading
eyes, then, finding that he was not to be let off from
the repulsive task, he would charge upon the doomed
animal with a blind fury wonderful to see. Seizing
it between his teeth, he would shake it madly,
crushing its bones, then hurl it several feet from
him, only to rush again and again upon it to repeat
the operation, doubtless with a Caligula-like wish in
his frantic breast that all the skunks on tho globe
had but one backbone.

I was once on a visit to a sheep-farming brother,
far away on the southern frontier of Buenos Ayres,
and amongst the dogs I found there was one most
interesting creature. He was a great, lumbering,
122 The Naturalist in La Plata.

stupid, good-tempered brute, so greedy that when
you offered him a piece of meat he would swallow
half your arm, and so obedient that at a word he
would dash himself against the horns of a bull, and
face death and danger in any shape. But, my
brother told me, he would not face a skunk—he
would die first. One day I took him out and found a
skunk, and for upwards of half an hour I sat on my
horse vainly cheering on my cowardly follower, and
urging him to battle. The very sight of the enemy
gave him a fit of the shivers ; and when the irascible
little enemy began to advance against us, going
through the performance by means of which he
generally puts his foes to flight without resorting to
malodorous measures—stamping his little feet in
rage, jumping up, spluttering and hissing and
flourishing his brush like a warlike banner above his
head—then hardly could I restrain my dog from
turning tail and flying home in abject terror. My
cruel persistence was rewarded at last. Continued
shouts, cheers, and hand-clappings began to stir the
brute to a kind of frenzy. Torn by conflicting
emotions, he began to revolve about the skunk at a
lumbering gallop, barking, howling, and bristling
up his hair; and at last, shutting his eyes, and with
a yell of desperation, he charged. I fully expected
to see the enemy torn to pieces in a few seconds,
but when the dog was still four or five feet from
him the fatal discharge came, and he dropped down
as if shot dead. For some time he lay on the earth
perfectly motionless, watched and gently bedewed
by the victorious skunk ; then he got up and crept
whining away. Gradually he quickened his pace,
The Mephitr Skunk, 123

finally breaking into a frantic run. In vain 1
followed him, shouting at the top of my lungs; he
stayed not to listen, and very speedily vanished
from sight—a white speck on the vast level plain.
At noon on the following day he made his appear-
ance, gaunt and befouled with mud, staggering
forward like a galvanized skeleton. Too worn out

 

Skunk and dog.

even to eat, he flung himself down, and for hours
lay like a dead thing, sleeping off the effects of those
few drops of perfume.

Dogs, I concluded, like men, have their idiosyn-
crasies ; but I had gained my point, and proved once
more—if any proof were needed—the truth of that
noble panegyric of Bacon’s on our faithful servant
and companion.
CUAPTER VIII.
MIMICRY AND WARNING COLOURS IN GRASSHOPPERS.

Ture is in La Plata a large handsome grasshopper
(Zoniopoda tarsata), the habits of which in its larva
and imago stages are in strange contrast, like those
in certain lepidoptera, in which the caterpillars form
societies and act in concert. The adult has a
greenish protective colouring, brown and green
banded thighs, bright red hind wings, seen only
during flight. It is solitary and excessively shy in
its habits, living always in concealment among the
dense foliage near the surface of the ground. The
young are intensely black, like grasshoppers cut
out of jet or ebony, and gregarious in habit, living
in bands of forty or fifty to three or four hundred ;
and so little shy, that they may sometimes be taken
up by handfuls before they begin to scatter in
alarm. Their gregarious habits and blackness—of
ail hues in nature the most obvious to the sight—
would alone be enough to make them the most
conspicuous of insects; but they have still other
habits which appear as if specially designed to
bring them more prominently into notice. Thus,
they all keep so close together at all times as to
have their bodies actually touching, and when
Mimicry and Warning Colours in Grasshoppers. 125

travelling, move so slowly that the laziest snail
might easily overtake and pass one of their bands,
and even disappear beyond their limited horizon in
a very short time.

They often select an exposed weed to feed on,
clustering together on its summit above the sur-
rounding verdure, an exceedingly conspicuous
object to every eye in the neighbourhood. They
also frequently change their feeding-ground ; at such
times they deliberately cross wide roads and other
open spaces, barren of grass, where, moving so
slowly that they scarcely seem to move at all, they
look at a distance like a piece of black velvet lying
on the ground. Thus in every imaginable way
they expose themselves and invite attack; yet, in
spite of it all, I have never detected birds preying
on them, and I have sometimes kept one of these
black societies under observation near my house
for several days, watching them at intervals, in
places where the trees overhead were the resort of
Icterine and tyrant birds, Guira cuckoos, and other
species, all great hunters after grasshoppers. A
young grasshopper is, moreover, a morsel that
seldom comes amiss to any bird, whether insect or
seed eater; and, as a rule, it is extremely shy,
nimble, and inconspicuous. It seems clear that,
although the young Zoniopoda does not mimic in
its form any black protected insect, it nevertheless
owes its safety to its blackness, together with the
habit it possesses of exposing itself in so open and
bold a manner. Blackness is so common in large
protected insects, as, for instance, in the un-
palatable leaf-cutting ants, scorpions, mygale
126 The Naturalist in La Plata.

spiders, wasps, and other dangerous kinds, that
it is manifestly a “warning colour,” the most
universal and best known in nature; and the
grasshopper, I believe, furthermore mimics the
fearless demeanour of the protected or venomous
species, which birds and other insect-eaters know
and respect. It might be supposed that the young
Zoniopoda is itself unpalatable; but this is scarcely
probable, for when the deceptive black mask is
once dropped, the excessive shyness, love of con-
cealment, and protective colouring of the insect
show that it is much sought after by birds.

While setting this down as an undoubted case of
“mimicry,” although it differs in some respects
from all other cases I have seen reported, I cannot
help remarking that this most useful word appears
to be in some danger of losing the meaning origi-
nally attached to it in zoology. There are now
very few cases of an accidental resemblance found
between two species in nature which are not set
down by someone to ‘‘mimicry,” some in which
even the wildest imagination might well fail to see
any possible benefit to the supposed mimic. In
cases where the outward resemblance of some
feeble animal to a widely different and well-pro-
tected species, or to some object like a leaf or
stick, and where such resemblance is manifestly
advantageous and has reacted on and modified the
life habits, it is conceivable that shght spontaneous
variations in the structure and colouring of the
unprotected species have been taken advantage of
by the principle of natural selection, and a case of
“‘mimicry’’ set up, to become more and more
Mimury and Warning Colours in Grasshoppers. 127

perfect in time, as successive casual variations in the
same direction increased the resemblance.

The stick-insect is perhaps the most perfect ex-
ample where resemblance to an inanimate object
has been the result aimed at, so to speak, by nature ;
the resemblance of the volucella fly to the humble-
bee, on which it is parasitical, is the most familiar
example of one species growing like another to its
own advantage, since only by means of its deceptive
likeness to the humble-bee is it able to penetrate
into the nest with impunity. These two cases,
with others of a similar character, were first called
cases of ‘‘ mimicry” by Kirby and Spence, in their
ever-delightful Introduction to Entomology—an old
book, but, curiously enough in these days of popular
treatises on all matters of the kind, still the only
general work on insects in the English language
which one who is not au entomologist can read
with pleasure.

A second case of mimicry not yet noticed by any
naturalist is seen in another grasshopper, also
common in La Plata (Rhomalea speciosa of Thun-
berg). This is an extremely elegant insect; the
head and thorax chocolate, with cream-coloured
markings; the abdomen steel-blue or purple, a
colour I have not seen in any other insects of this
family. The fore wings have a protective colour-
ing; the hind wings are bright red. When at rest,
‘with the red and purple tints concealed, it is only a
very pretty grasshopper, but the instant it takes
wing it becomes the fac-simile of a very common
wasp of the genus Pepris. These wasps vary
greatly in size, some being as large as the hornet ;

K
128 The Naturalist in La Plata.

they are solitary, and feed on the honey of flowers
and on fruit, and, besides being furnished with
stings like other wasps—though their sting is not
so venomous as in other genera—they also, when
angry, emit a most abominable odour, and are thus
doubly protected against their enemies. Their ex-
cessive tameness, slow flight, and indolent motions
serve to show that they are not accustomed to be
interfered with. All these strong-smelling wasps
have steel-blue or purple bodies, and bright red
wings. So exactly does the Rhomalea grasshopper
mimic the Pepris when flying, that I have been
deceived scores of times. I have even seen it on
the leaves, and, after it has flown and settled once
more, I have gone to look at it again, to make sure
that my eyes had not deceived me. It is curious
to see how this resemblance has reacted on and
modified the habits of the grasshopper. It is a
great flyer, and far more aérial in its habits than
any other insect I am acquainted with in this
family. living always in trees, instead of on or near
the surface of the ground. It is abundant in
orchards and plantations round Buenos Ayres,
where its long and peculiarly soft, breezy note may
be heard all summer. If the ancient Athenians
possessed so charming an insect as this, their great
regard for the grasshopper was not strange: I
only wish that the “‘ Athenians of South America,”
as my fellow-townsmen sometimes call themselves
in moments of exaltation, had a feeling of the same
kind—the regard which does not impale its object
on a pin—for the pretty light-hearted songster of
their groves and gardens,
Mimicry and Warning Colours in Grasshoppers. 129

When taken in the hand, it has the habit,
common to most grasshoppers, of pouring out an
inky fluid from its mouth; only the discharge is
unusually copious in this species. It has another
habit in defending itself which is very curious.
When captured it instantly curls its body round, as
a wasp does to sting. The suddenness of this action
has more than once caused me to drop an insect I
had taken, actually thinking for the moment that I
had taken hold of a wasp. Whether birds would
be deceived and made to drop it or not is a ques-
tion it would not be easy to settle; but the instinct
certainly looks like one of a series of small adapta-
tions, all tending to make the resemblance to a
wasp more complete and effective.
CHAPTER IX.
DRAGON-FLY STORMS.

One of the most curious things I have encountered
in my observations on animal life relates to a habit
of the larger species of dragon-flies inhabiting the
Pampas and Patagonia. Dragon-flies are abun-
dant throughout the country wherever there is
water. There are several species, all more or less
brilliantly coloured. The kinds that excited my won-
der, from their habits, are twice as large as the com-
mon widely distributed insects, being three inches
to four inches in length, and as arule they are sober-
coloured, although there is one species—the largest
among them—entirely of a brilliant scarlet. This
kind is, however, exceedingly rare. All the different
kinds (of the large dragon-flies) when travelling
associate together, and occasionally, in a flight
composed of countless thousands, one of these
brilliant-hued individuals will catch the eye, appear-
ing as conspicuous among the others as a poppy or
scarlet geranium growing alone in an otherwise
flowerless field. The most common species—and
in some cases the entire flight seems to be composed
of this kind only—is the Aischna bonariensis Raml,
the prevailing colour of which is pale blue. But
the really wonderful thing about them all alike is,
Dragon-Fly Storms. eal

that they appear only when flying before the south-
west wind, called pampero—the wind that blows
from the interior of the pampas. The pampero
is a dry, cold wind, exceedingly violent. It bursts
on the plains very suddenly, and usually lasts only
a short time, sometimes not more than ten minutes;
it comes irregularly, and at all seasons of the year,
but is most frequent in the hot season, and after
exceptionally sultry weather. It is in summer and
autumn that the large dragon-flies appear ; not with
the wind, but—and this is the most curious part of
the matter—-in advance of it; and inasmuch as
these insects are not seen in the country at other
times, and frequently appear in seasons of pro-
longed drought, when all the marshes and water-
courses for many hundreds of miles are dry, they
must of course traverse immense distances, flying
before the wind at a speed of seventy or eighty miles
an hour. On some occasions they appear almost
simultaneously with the wind, going by like a flash,
and instantly disappearing from sight. You have
scarcely time to see them before the wind strikes
you. As arule, however, they make their appear-
ance from five to fifteen minutes before the wind
strikes; and when they are in great numbers the
air, to a height of ten or twelve feet above the
surface of the ground, is all at once seen to be full
of them, rushing past with extraordinary velocity
in a north-easterly direction. In very oppressive
weather, and when the swiftly advancing pampero
brings no moving mountains of mingled cloud and
dust, and is consequently not expected, the sudden
apparition of the dragon-fly is a most welcome one,
h32 The Naturalist in La Plata.

for then an immediate burst of cold wind is con-
fidently looked for. In the expressive vernacular
of the gauchos the large dragon-fly is called hyo del
pampero—son of the south-west wind.

It is clear that these great and frequent dragon-
fly movements are not explicable on any current
hypothesis regarding the annual migrations of birds,
the occasional migrations of butterflies, or the mi-
grations of some mammals, like the reindeer and
buffalo of Arctic America, which, according to Rae
and other observers, perform long journeys north
and south at regular seasons, “from a sense of
polarity.” Neither this hypothetical sense in
‘animals, nor “ historical memory” will account for
the dragon-fly storms, as the phenomenon of the
pampas might be called, since the insects do not
pass and repass between “ breeding and subsistence
areas,” but all journey in a north-easterly direction ;
and of the countless millions flying like thistle-
down before the great pampero wind, not one solitary
traveller ever returns.

The cause of the flight is probably dynamical,
affecting the insects with a sudden panic, and com-
pelling them to rush away before the approaching
tempest. The mystery is that they should fly
from the wind before it reaches them, and yet travel
in the same direction with it. When they pass
over the level, treeless country, not one insect lags
behind, or permits the wind to overtake it; but,
on arriving at a wood or large plantation they
swarm into it, as if seeking shelter from some
swift-pursuing enemy, and on such occasions they
sometimes remain clinging to the trees while the
Dragon-Fly Storms. 133

wind spends its force. This is particularly the
case when the wind blows up ata late hour of the
day; then, on the following morning, the dragon-
flies are seen clustering to the foliage in such
numbers that many trees are covered with them, a
large tree often appearing as if hung with curtains
of some brown glistening material, too thick to
show the green leaves beneath.

In Patagonia, where the phenomenon of dragon-fly
storms is also known, an Englishman residing at the
Rio Negro related to me the following occurrence
which he witnessed there. A race meeting was
being held near the town of Hl Carmen, on a high
exposed piece of ground, when, shortly before sun-
set, a violent pampero wind came up, laden with
dense dust-clouds. A few moments before the
storm broke, the air all at once became obscured
with a prodigious cloud of dragon-flies.. About a
hundred men, most of them on horseback, were
congregated on the course at the time, and the in-
sects, instead of rushing by in their usual way,
settled on the people in such quantities that men
and horses were quickly covered with clinging
masses of them. My informant said—and this
agrees with my own observation—that he was
greatly impressed by the appearance of terror shown
by the insects ; they clung to him as if for dear life,
so that he had the greatest difficulty in ridding
himself of them.

Weissenborn, in Loudon’s Magazine of Natural
History (N. 8. vol. iii.) describes a great migration
of dragon-flies which he witnessed in Germany in
1839, and also mentions a similar phenomenon
134 The Naturalist in La Plata.

occurring in 1816, and extending over a large por-
tion of Europe. But in these cases the movement
took place at the end of May, and the insects
travelled due south; their migrations were there-
fore similar to those of birds and butterflies, and
were probably due to the same cause. I have
been unable to find any mention of a phenomenon
resembling the one with which we are so familiar
on the pampas, and which, strangely enough,
has not been recorded by any European naturalists
who have travelled there.
CHAPTER X.

MOSQUITOES AND PARASITE PROBLEMS.

THERE cannot be a doubt that some animals
possess an instinctive knowledge of their enemies
—or, at all events, of some of their enemies—
though I do not believe that this faculty is so com-
mon as many naturalists imagine. The most striking
example I am acquainted with is seen in gnats or
mosquitoes, and in the minute South American
sandflies (Simulia), when a dragon-fly appears in a
place where they are holding their aérial pastimes.
The sudden appearance of a ghost among human
revellers could not produce a greater panic. I
have spoken in the last chapter of periodical
storms or waves of dragon-flies in the Plata region,
and mentioned incidentally that the appearance of
these insects is most welcome in oppressively hot
weather, since they are known to come just in
advance of arush of cool wind. In La Plata we
also look for the dragon-fly, and rejoice at its
coming, for another reason. We know that the
presence of this noble insect will cause the clouds
of stinging gnats and flies, which make life a
burden, to vanish like smoke

When a flight of dragon-flies passes over the
country many remain along the route, as I have
136 The Naturalist in La Plata.

said, sheltering themselves wherever trees occur ;
and, after the storm blows over, these strangers
and stragglers remain for some days hawking for
prey in the neighbourhood. It is curious to note
that they do not show any disposition to seek for
watercourses. It may be that they feel lost ina
strange region, or that the panic they have suffered,
in their long flight before the wind, has unsettled
their instincts; for it is certain that they do not,
like the dragon-fly in Mrs. Browning’s poem, “ re-
turn to dream upon the river.” They lead instead
a kind of vagabond existence, hanging about the
plantations, and roaming over the surrounding
plains. It is then remarked that gnats and sand-
flies apparently cease to exist, even in places where
they have been most abundant. They have not
been devoured by the dragon-flies, which are perhaps
very few in number; they have simply got out of
the way, and will remain in close concealment until
their enemies take their departure, or have all been
devoured by martins, tyrant birds, and the big
robber-flies or devil’s dykes—no name is bad enough
for them—of the family Asilide. During these
peaceful gnatless days, if a person thrusts himself
into the bushes or herbage in some dark sheltered
place, he will soon begin to hear the thin familiar
sounds, as of “‘ horns of elf-land faintly blowing ”’;
and presently, from the ground and the under
surface of every leaf, the ghost-like withered little
starvelings will appear in scores and in hundreds
to settle on him, fear not having blunted their keen
appetites.

When riding over the pampas on a hot still day,
Mosquitoes and Parasite Problems. 137

with a pertinacious cloud of gnats or sandflies
hovering just above my head and keeping me
company for miles, I have always devoutly wished
for a stray dragon-fly to show himself. Frequently
the wish has been fulfilled, the dragon-fly, appa-
rently “ sagacious of his quarry from afar,” sweeping
straight at his prey, and instantly, as if by miracle,
the stinging rain has ceased and the noxious cloud
vanished from overhead, to be re-formed no more.
This has always seemed very extraordinary to me;
for in other matters gnats do not appear to possess
even that proverbial small dose of intellect for which
we give most insects credit. Before the advent of
the dragon-fly it has perhaps happened that I have
been vigorously striking at them, making it very
unpleasant for them, and also killing and disabling
many hundreds—a larger number than the most
voracious dragon-fly could devour in the course of
a whole day ; and yet, after brushing and beating
them off until my arms have ached with the exer-
tion, they have continued to rush blindly on their
fate, exhibiting not the faintest symptom of fear.
I suppose that for centuries mosquitoes have, in this
way, been brushed and beaten away with hands and
with tails, without learning caution. It is not in
their knowledge that there are hands and tails. A
large animal is simply a field on which they con-
fidently settle to feed, sounding shrill flourishes on
their little trumpets to show how fearless they are.
But the dragon-fly is very ancient on the earth, and
if, during the Devonian epoch, when it existed, it
preyed on some blood-sucking insect from which
our Culicidz have come, then these stupid little
138 The Nacuralist in La Plata.

insects have certainly had ample time in which to
learn well at least one lesson.

There is not in all organic nature, to my mind,
any instance of wasted energy comparable in
magnitude with the mosquito’s thirst for blood, and
the instincts and elaborate blood-pumping apparatus
with which it is related. The amount of pollen
given off by some wind-fertilized trees—so great in
some places that it covers hundreds of square miles
of earth and water with a film of yellow dust—
strikes us as an amazing waste of material on the
part of nature; but in these cases we readily see
that this excessive prodigality is necessary to con-
tinue the species, and that a sufficient number of
flowers would not be impregnated unless the entire
trees were bathed for days in the fertilizing cloud,
in which only one out of many millions of floating
particles can ever hit the mark. The mosquito is
able to procreate without ever satisfying its ravenous
appetite for blood. To swell its grey thread-like
abdomen toa coral bead is a delight to the insect,
but not necessary to its existence, like food and
water to ours; it is the great prize in the lottery
of life, which few can ever succeed in drawing. In
a hot summer, when one has ridden perhaps for
half a day over a low-lying or wet district, through
an atmosphere literally obscured with a fog of
mosquitoes, this fact strikes the mind very forcibly,
for in such places it frequently is the case that
mammals do not exist, or are exceedingly rare. In
Europe it is different. There, as Réaumur said,
possibly one gnat in every hundred may be able to
Mosquitoes and Parasite Problems. 139

gratify its appetite for blood ; but of the gnats in
many districts in South America it would be nearer
the mark to say that only one in a hundred millions
can ever do so.

Curtis discovered that only the female mosquito
bites or sucks blood, the male being without tongue
or mandibles; and he asks, What, then, does the
male feed on? He conjectures that it feeds on
flowers ; but, had he visited some swampy places
in hot countries, where flowers are few and the
insects more numerous than the sands on the sea-
shore, he would most probably have said that the
males subsist on decaying vegetable matter and
moisture of slime. It is, however, more important
to know what the female subsists on. We know
that she thirsts for warm mammalian blood, that
she seeks it with avidity, and is provided with an
admirable organ for its extraction—only, unfortu-
nately for her, she does not get it, or, at all events,
the few happy individuals that do get it are swamped
in the infinite multitude of those that are doomed
by nature to total abstinence.

I should like to know whether this belief of
Curtis, shared by Westwood and other distinguished
entomologists, but originally put forward merely as
a conjecture, has ever been tested by careful ob-
servation and experiment. If not, then itis strange
that it should have crept into many important works,
where it is stated not as a mere guess, but as an
established fact. Thus, Van Beneden, in his work
on parasites, while classing female mosquitoes with
his “‘ miserable wretches,” yet says, ‘If blood fails
them, they live, like the males, on the juices of
140 The Naturalist in La Plata.

flowers.’ If this be so, it is quite certain that the
juices fail to satisfy them ; and that, like Dr. Tanner,
who was ravenously hungry during his forty days’
fast, in spite of his frequent sips of water, the
mosquito still craves for something better than a
cool vegetarian diet. I cannot help thinking,
though the idea may seem fanciful, that mosquitoes
feed on nothing. We know that the ephemere take
no refreshment in the imago state, the mouth being
aborted or atrophied in these short-lived creatures ;
but we also know that they belong to an exceed-
ingly ancient tribe, and possibly, after the earth
had ceased to produce their proper nourishment
there came in their history a long hungry period,
which did not kill them, but lasted until their
feeding instincts became obsolete, the mouth lost
its use, and their life in its perfect state dwindled
to its present length.

In any case, how unsatisfactory is the mosquitoes’
existence, and what a curious position they occupy
in nature! Let us suppose that, owing to some
great change in the conditions of the earth, rapacious
birds were no longer able to capture prey, and that,
by a corresponding change in their organizations,
they were able to subsist on the air they breathed,
with perhaps an occasional green leaf and a sip of
water, and yet retained the old craving for solid
food, and the old predatory instincts and powers
undiminished ; they would be in the position of
mosquitoes in the imago state. And if then fifty
or a hundred individuals were to succeed every
year in capturing something and making one hearty
meal, these few fortunate diners would bear about
Mosquitoes and Parasite Problems. 141

the same proportion to all the raptors on the globe
as the mosquitoes that succeed in sucking blood to
their unsuccessful fellows. In the case of the hawks,
the effect of the few meals on the entire rapacious
family or order would certainly be nil; and it is
impossible to believe for a moment that the com-
paratively infinitesimal amount of blood sucked by
mosquitoes can serve to invigorate the species.
The wonder is that the machinery, which accom-
plishes nothing, should continue in such perfect
working order.

When we consider the insect’s delicate organ, so
admirably fitted for the purpose to which it is ap-
plied, it becomes difficult to believe that it could
have been so perfected except in a condition of
things utterly unlike the present. There must have
been a time when mosquitoes found their proper
nourishment, and when warm mammalian blood
was as necessary to their existence as honey is to
that of the bee, or insect food to the dragon-fly.

This applies to many blood-sucking insects besides
mosquitoes, and with special force to the tick tribes
(Ixodes), which swarm throughout Central and South
America; for in these degraded spiders the whole
body has been manifestly modified to fit it for a
parasitical life ; while the habits of the insect during
its blind, helpless, waiting existence on trees, and
its sudden great development when it succeeds in
attaching itself to an animal body, also point irre-
sistibly to the same conclusion. In the sunny up-
lands they act (writes Captain Burton) like the
mosquitoes of the hot, humid Beiramar. “The
nuisance is general ; it seems to be in the air; every
142 The Naturalist in La Plata.

blade of grass has its colony ; clusters of hundreds
adhere to the twigs; myriads are found in the bush
clumps. Lean and flat when growing to the leaves,
the tick catches man or beast brushing by, fattens
rapidly, and, at the end of a week’s good living,

drops off, plena cruoris.”” When on trees, Belt says,
they instinctively place themselves on the extreme
tips of leaves and shoots, with their hind legs stretch-
ing out, each foot armed with two hooks or claws,
with which to lay hold of any animal brushing by.
During this wretched, incom-
plete existence (from which, in
most cases, it is never destined
to emerge), its greatest length
is about one-fourth of an inch;
but where it fastens itself to an
Txodes; before and after > nimal the abdomen increases to
a globe as big as a medium-sized
Barcelona nut. Being silvery-grey or white in
colour, it becomes, when thus distended, very con-
spicuous on any dark surface. I have frequently
seen black, smooth-haired dogs with their coats
turned into a perfect garden of these white spider-
flowers or mushrooms. The white globe is leathery,
and nothing can injure it; and the poor beast
cannot rub, bite, or scratch it off, as it is anchored
to his flesh by eight sets of hooks and a triangle
of teeth.

The ticks inhabiting regions rich in bird and
insect life, but with few mammals, are in the same
condition as mosquitoes, as far as the supply of
blood goes; and, like the mosquitoes, they are com-
pelled and able to exist without the nourishment

 
Mosquitoes and Parasite Problems. 143

best suited to them. They are nature’s miserable
castaways, parasitical tribes lost in a great dry
wilderness where no blood is; and every marsh-
born mosquito, piping of the hunger gnawing its
vitals, and every forest tick, blindly feeling with its
grappling-irons for the beast that never brushes by,
seems to tell us of a world peopled with gigantic
forms, mammalian and reptilian, which once afforded
abundant pasture to the parasite, and which the
parasite perhaps assisted to overthrow.

It is almost necessary to transport oneself to the
vast tick-infested wilderness of the New World to
appreciate the full significance of a passage in Belt’s
Naturalist in Nicaragua, in which it is suggested that
man’s hairless condition was perhaps brought about
by natural selection in tropical regions, where he was
greatly troubled with parasites of this kind. It is
certain that if in such a country as Brazil he pos-
sessed a hairy coat, affording cover to the tick and
enabling it to get a footing on the body, his condi-
tion would be a very sad one. Savages abhor hairs
on the body, and even pluck them off their faces.
This seems like a survival of an ancient habit ac-
quired when the whole body was clothed with hair;
and if primitive man ever possessed such a habit,
nature only followed his lead in giving him a hair-
less offspring.

Ts it not also probable that the small amount of
mammalian life in South America, and the aquatic
habits of nearly all the large animals in the warmer
districts, is due to the persecutions of the tick?
The only way in which a large animal can rid itself

of the pest is by going into the water or wallowing
L
144 The Naturalist in La Plata.

in the mud; and this perhaps accounts for the more
or less aquatic habits of the jaguar, aguara-guazu,
the large Cervus paludosus, tapir, capybara, and
peccary. Monkeys, which are most abundant, are
a notable exception; but these animals have the
habit of attending to each other’s skins, and spend
a great deal of their time in picking off the parasites.

But how do birds escape the ticks, since these
parasites do not confine their attacks to any one
class of animals, but attach themselves impartially
to any living thing coming within reach of their
hooks, from snake to man? My own observations
bearing on this point refer less to the Ixodes than
to the minute béte-rouge, which is excessively
abundant in the Plata district, where it is known as
bicho colorado, and in size and habits resembles the
English Leptus autumnalis. It is so small that,
notwithstanding its bright scarlet colour, it can only
be discerned by bringing the eye close to it; and
being, moreover, exceedingly active and abundant
in all shady places in summer—making life a misery
to careless human beings—it must be very much
more dangerous to birds than the larger sedentary
Ixodes. The béte-rouge invariably lodges beneath
the wings of birds, where the loose scanty plumage
affords easy access to the skin. Domestic birds
suffer a great deal from its persecutions, and their
young, if allowed to run about in shady places, die
of the irritation. Wild birds, however, seem to be
very little troubled, and most of those I have exa-
mined have been almost entirely free from parasites.
Probably they are much more sensitive than the
domestic birds, and able to feel and pick off the
Mosquitoes and Parasite Problems. 145

insects with their beaks before they have penetrated
into the skin. I believe they are also able to pro-
tect themselves in another way, namely, by prevent-
ing the parasites from reaching their bodies at all.
I was out under the trees one day with a pet oven-
bird (Furnarius rufus), which had full liberty to
range about at will, and noticed that at short inter-
vals it went through the motions of picking some-
thing from its toes or legs, though I could see
nothing on them. At length I approached my eyes
to within a few inches of the bird’s feet, and dis-
covered that the large dry branch on which it stood
was covered with a multitude of parasites, all run-
ning rapidly about like foraging ants, and whenever
one came to the bird’s feet it at once ran up the leg.
Every time this happened, so far as I could see, the
bird felt it, and quickly and deftly picked it off with
the point of its bill. It seemed very astonishing
that the horny covering of the toes and legs should
be so exquisitely sensitive, for the insects are so
small and light that they cannot be felt on the hand,
even when a score of them are running over it; but
the fact is as I have stated, and it is highly probable,
I think, that most wild birds keep themselves free
from these little torments in the same way.

Some observations of mine on a species of Orni-
thomyia—a fly parasitical on birds—might possibly
be of use in considering the question of the anomalous
position in nature of insects possessing the instincts
and aptitudes of parasites, and organs manifestly
modified to suit a parasitical mode of life, yet com-
pelled and able to exist free, feeding, perhaps, on
146 The Naturalist in La Plata.

vegetable juices, or, like the ephemers, on nothing
at all. For it must be borne in mind that I do not
assert that these “ occasional” or “ accidental ”*
parasites, as some one calls them, explaining no-
thing, do not feed on such juices. I do not know
what they feed on. I only know that the joyful
alacrity with which gnats and stinging flies of all
kinds abandon the leaves, supposed to afford them
pasture, to attack a warm-blooded animal, serves to
show how strong the impulse is, and how ineradicable
the instinct, which must have had an origin. Per-
haps the habits of the bird-fly I have mentioned
will serve to show how, in some cases, the free life
of some blood-sucking flies and other insects might
have originated.

Kirby and Spence, in their Jntroduction, mention
that one or two species of Ornithomyia have been
observed flying about and alighting on men; and in
one case the fly extracted blood and was caught, the
species being thus placed beyond doubt. This cir-
cumstance led the authors to believe that the insect,
when the bird it is parasitical on dies, takes to
flight and migrates from body to body, occasionally
tasting blood until, coming to the right body—to
wit, that of a bird, or of a particular species of bird
—it once more establishes itself permanently in the
plumage. I fancy that the insect sometimes leads
a freer life and ranges much more than the authors
imagined; and I refer to Kirby and Spence, with
apologies to those who regard the Introduction as
out of date, only because I am not aware that we
have any later observations on the subject.

There is in La Plata a small very common
Mosquitoes and Parasite Problems. 147

Dendrocolaptine bird—Anumbius acuticaudatus—
much infested by an Ornithomyia, a pretty, pale
insect, half the size of a house-fly, and elegantly
striped with green. It is a very large parasite for
so small a bird, yet so cunning and alert is it, and

we

 

Firewood-gatherer and Bird-fly.

so swiftly is it able to swim through the plumage,
that the bird is unable to rid itself of so un-
desirable a companion. The bird lives with its
mate all the year round, much of the time with its
grown-up young, in its nest—a large structure, in
148 The Naturalist in La Plata.

which so much building-material is used that the
bird is called in the vernacular Lefiatero, or Fire-
wood-gatherer. On warm bright days without
wind, during the absence of the birds, I have
frequently seen a company of from half a dozen to
a dozen or fifteen of the parasitical fly wheeling
about in the air above the nest, hovering and
gambolling together, just like house-flies in a room
in summer; but always on the appearance of the
birds, returning from their feeding-ground, they
would instantly drop down and disappear into the
nest. How curious this instinct seems! The fly
regards the bird, which affords it the warmth and
food essential to life, as its only deadly enemy ;
and with an inherited wisdom, like that of the
mosquito with regard to the dragon-fly, or of the
horse-fly with regard to the Monedula wasp,
vanishes like smoke from its presence, and only
approaches the bird secretly from a place of con-
cealment.

The parasitical habit tends inevitably to degrade
the species acquiring it, dulling its senses and
faculties, especially those of sight and locomotion ;
but the Ornithomyia seems an exception, its
dependent life having had a contrary effect ; the
extreme sensitiveness, keenness of sight, and quick-
ness of the bird having reacted on the insect,
giving it a subtlety in its habits and motions almost
without a parallel even among free insects. A
man with a blood-sucking flat-bodied flying squirrel,
concealing itself among his clothing and gliding and
dodging all over his body with so much artifice
and rapidity as to defeat all] efforts made to capture
Mosquitoes and Parasite Problems. 149

it or knock it off, would be a case parallel to that
of the bird-fly on the small bird. It might be
supposed that the Firewood-gatherer, like some
ants that keep domestic pets, makes a pet of the
fly; for it is a very pretty insect, barred with
green, and with rainbow reflections ou its wings—
and birds are believed by some theorists to possess
esthetic tastes; but the discomfort of having such
a vampire on the body would, I imagine, be too
great to allow a kindly instinct of that nature to
grow up. Moreover, I have on several occasions
seen the bird making frantic efforts to capture one
of the flies, which had incautiously flown up from
the nest at the wrong moment. Bird and fly seem
to know each other wonderfully well.

Here, then, we have a parasitical insect specialized
in the highest degree, yet retaining all its pristine
faculties unimpaired, its love of liberty, and of asso-
ciating in numbers together for sportive exercises,
and well able to take care of itself during its free in-
tervals. And probably when thrown on the world, as
when nests are blown down, or the birds get killed, or
change their quarters, as they often do, it is able to
exist for some time without avian blood. Let us then
imagine some of these orphaned colonies, unable to
find birds, but through a slight change in habits or
organization able to exist in the imago state with-
out sucking blood until they laid their eggs; and
succeeding’ generations, still better able to stand
the altered conditions of life until they become
practically independent (like gnats), multiplying
greatly, and disporting themselves in clouds over
birdless forests. yet still retaining the old hunger
150 The Naturalist ex Le Pale.

for blood and the power to draw it, and ready at
any moment to return to the ancestral habit. It
might be said that if such a result were possible
it would have occurred, but that we find no insect
like the Ornithomyia existing independently. With
the bird-fly it has not occurred, as far as we know ;
but in the past history of some independent para-
sites it is possible that something similar to the
imaginary case I have sketched may have taken
place. The bush-tick is a more highly specialized,
certainly a more degraded, creature than the bird-
fly, and the very fact of its existence seems to
show that it is possible for even the lowest of the
fallen race of parasites to start afresh in life under
new conditions, and to reascend in the scale of
being, although still bearing about it the marks of
former degeneracy.

The connection between the flea and the mammal
it feeds on is even less close than that which exists
between the Ornithomyia and bird. The fact that
fleas are so common and universal—for in all lands
we have them, like the poor, always with us ; and
that they are found on all mammals, from the king
of beasts to the small modest mouse—seems to show
a great amount of variability and adaptiveness, as
well as a very high antiquity. It has often been
reported that fleas have been found hopping on the
ground in desert places, where they could not have
been dropped by man or beast; and it has been
assumed that these ‘*independent”’ fleas must, like
gnats and ticks, subsist on vegetable juices. There
is no doubt that they are able to exist and propagate
Mosquitoes and Parasite Problems, 151

for one or two years after being deprived of their
proper aliment; houses shut up for a year or
longer are sometimes found infested with them;
possibly in the absence of “ vegetable juices” they
flourish on dust. I have never detected them
hopping on the ground in uninhabited places,
although I once found them in Patagonia, in a
hamlet which had been attacked and depopulated
by the Indians about twenty months before my
visit. On entering one of the deserted huts I found
the floor literally swarming with fleas, and in less
than ten seconds my legs, to the height of my knees,
were almost black with their numbers. This proves
that they are able toincrease greatly for a period with-
out blood’; but I doubt that they can go on existing
and increasing for an indefinite time; perhaps their
true position, with regard to the parasitical habit, is
midway between that of the strict parasite which
never leaves the body, and that of independent
parasites like the Culex and the Ixodes, and all
those which are able to exist free for ever, and are
parasitical only when the opportunity offers.
Entomologists regard the flea as a degraded fly.
Certainly it is very much more degraded than the
bird-borne Ornithomyia, with its subtle motions
and instinct, its power of flight and social pastimes.
The poor pulex has lost every trace of wings;
nevertheless, in its fallen condition it has developed
some remarkable qualities and saltatory powers,
which give it a lower kind of glory ; and, compared
with another parasite with which it shares the
human species, it is almost a noble insect. Darwin
has some remarks about the smallness of the brain
152 The Naturalist in La Plata.

of an ant, assuming that this insect possesses a very
high intelligence, but I doubt very much that the ant,
which moves in a groove, is mentally the superior
of the unsocial flea. The last is certainly the most
teachabie; and if fleas were generally domesticated
and made pets of, probably there would be as many
stories about their marvellous intelligence and
fidelity to man as we now hear about our over-
praised “ friend’”’ the dog

With regard to size, the flea probably started on
its downward course as a comparatively large insect,
probably larger than the Ornithomyia. That insect
has been able to maintain its existence, without
dwindling like the Leptus into a mere speck, through
the great modification in organs and instinct, which
adapt it so beautifully to the feathery element in
which it moves. The bush-tick, wingless from the
beginning, and diverging in another direction, has
probably been greatly increased in size by its para-
sitical habit; this seems proven by the fact, that as
long as it is parasitical on nothing it remains small,
but when able to fasten itself to an animal it rapidly
developes to a great size. Again, the big globe of
its abdomen is coriaceous and elastic, and is pro-
bably as devoid of sensation as a ball of india-rubber.
The insect, being made fast by hooks and teeth to its
victim, all efforts to remove it only increase the
pain it causes; and animals that know it well do
not attempt to rub, scratch, or bite it off, there-
fore the great size and the conspicuous colour of
the tick are positive advantages to it. The flea,
without the subtlety and highly-specialized organs
of the Ornithomyia, or the stick-fast powers and
Mosquitoes and Parasite Problems. 153

leathery body of the Ixodes, can only escape its
vigilant enemies by making itself invisible; hence
every variation, i.e. increase in jumping-power and
diminished bulk, tending towards this result, has
been taken advantage of by natural selection.
CHAPTER XI
HUMBLE-BEES AND OTHER MATTERS.

Two humble-bees, Bombus thoracicus and B. viola-
ceus, are found on the pampas; the first, with a
primrose yellow thorax, and the extremity of the
abdomen bright rufous, slightly resembles the
English B. terrestris; the rarer species, which is a
trifle smaller than the first, is of a uniform intense
black, the body having the appearance of velvet, the
wings being of a deep violaceous blue.

A census of the humble-bees in any garden or
field always shows that the yellow bees outnumber
the black in the proportion of about seven to one;
and I have also found their nests for many years
in the same proportion; about seven nests of the
yellow to one nest of the black species. In habits
they are almost identical, and when two species so
closely allied are found inhabiting the same locality,
it is only reasonable to infer that one possesses
some advantage over the other, and that the least
favoured species will eventually disappear. In this
case, where one so greatly outnumbers the other, it
might be thought that the rarer species is dying
out, or that, on the contrary, it is a new-comer
destined to supplant the older more numerous
species. Yet, during the twenty years I have ob-
fTumble-Bees and other Matters. 155

served them, there has occurred no change in their
relative positions; though both have greatly in-
creased in numbers during that time, owing to the
spread of cultivation. And yet it would scarcely
be too much to expect some marked change in a
period so long as that, even through the slow-
working agency of natural selection; for it is not
as if there had been an exact balance of power be-
tween them. In the same period of time I have
seen several species, once common, almost or quite
disappear, while others, very low down as to
numbers, have been exalted to the first rank. In
insect life especially, these changes have been
numerous, rapid, and widespread.

In the district where, as a boy, I chased and
caught tinamous, and also chased osiriches, 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
bees deepen the hollow by burrowing in the earth;
and when the spring foliage sheltering it withers
up, they construct a dome-shaped covering of small
sticks, thorns, and leaves bitten into extremely
minute pieces. They sometimes take possession of
a small hole or cavity in the ground, and save
themselves the labour of excavation.

Their architecture closely resembles that of B.
terrestris. They make rudely-shaped oval honey-
cells, varying from half an inch to an inch anda
half in length, the smaller ones being the first
156 The Naturalist in La Plata.

made; later in the season the old cocoons are
utilized for storing honey. The wax is chocolate-
coloured, and almost the only difference I can find
in the economy of the two species is that the black
bee uses a large quantity of wax in plastering the
interior of its nest. The egg-cell of the yellow bee
always contains from twelve to sixteen eggs; that
of the black bee from ten to fourteen; and the eggs
of this species are the largest though the bee is
smallest. At the entrance on the edge of the
mound one bee is usually stationed, and, when
approached, it hums a shrill challenge, and throws
itself into a menacing attitude. The sting is ex-
ceedingly painful.

One summer I was so fortunate as to discover
two nests of the two kinds within twelve yards of
each other, and I resolved to watch them very
carefully, in order to see whether the two species
ever came into collision, as sometimes happens with
ants of different species living close together.
Several times I saw a yellow bee leave its own nest
and hover round or settle on the neighbouring one,
upon which the sentinel black bee would attack and
drive it off. One day, while watching, I was de-
lighted to see a yellow bee actually enter its neigh-
bour’s nest, the sentinel being off duty. In about
five minutes’ time it came out again and flew away
unmolested. I concluded from this that humble-
bees, like their relations of the hive, occasionally
plunder each other’s sweets. On another occasion
I found a black bee dead at the entrance of the
yellow bees’ nest; doubtless this individual had
been caught in the act of stealing honey, and, after
FTumble-Bees ana other Matters. £57

it had been stung to death, it had been dragged
out and left there as a warning to others with like
felonious intentions.

There is one striking difference between the two
species. The yellow bee is inodorous; the black
bee, when angry and attacking, emits an exceed-
ingly powerful odour : curiously enough, this smell
is identical in character with that made when angry
by all the wasps of the South American genus
Pepris—dark blue wasps with red wings. This
odour at first produces a stinging sensation on the
nerve of smell, but when inhaled in large measure
becomes very nauseating. On one occasion, while
I was opening a nest, several of the bees buzzing
round my head and thrusting their stings through
the veil I wore for protection, gave out so pungent
a smell that I found it unendurable, and was com-
pelled to retreat.

It seems strange that a species armed with a
venomous sting and possessing the fierce courage,
of the humble-bee should also have this repulsive
odour for a protection. It is, in fact, as incongruous
as it would be were our soldiers provided with
guns and swords first, and after with phials of
assafoetida to be uncorked in the face of an enemy.

Why, or how, animals came to be possessed of the
power of emitting pestiferous odours is a mystery ;
we only see that natural selection has, in some
instances, chiefly among insects, taken advantage
of it to furnish some of the weaker, more unpro-
tected species with a means of escape from their
enemies. The most striking example I know is that
158 The Naturalist in La Plata.

of a large hairy caterpillar I have found on dry
wood in Patagonia, and which, when touched, emits
an intensely nauseous effuvium. Happily it is very
volatile, but while it lasts it is even more detestable
than that of the skunk.

The skunk itself offers perhaps the one instance
amongst the higher vertebrates of an animal in
which all the original instincts of self-preservation
have died out, giving place to this lower kind of
protection. All the other members of the family
it belongs to are cunning, swift of foot, and, when
overtaken, fierce-tempered and well able to defend
themselves with their powerful well-armed jaws.

For some occult reason they are provided with
a gland charged with a malodorous secretion ; and
out of this mysterious liquor Nature has elaborated
‘the skunk’s inglorious weapon. The skunk alone
when attacked makes no attempt to escape or to
defend itself by biting ; but, thrown by its agitation
into a violent convulsion, involuntarily discharges its
foetid liquor into the face of an opponent. When
this animal had once ceased to use so good a weapon
as its teeth in defending itself, degenerating at the
same time into a slow-moving creature, without fear
and without cunning, the strength and vileness of its
odour would be continually increased by the cumu-
lative process of natural selection : and how effec-
tive the protection has become is shown by the
abundance of the species throughout the whole
American continent. It is lucky for mankind—
especially for naturalists and sportsmen—that other
species have not been improved in the same direc-
tion.
FTumble-Bees and other Matters. 159

But what can we say of the common deer of the
pampas (Cervus campestris), the male of which gives
out an effuvium quite as far-reaching although not
so abominable in character as that of the Mephitis ?
It comes in disagreeable whiffs to the human
nostril when the perfumer of the wilderness is not
even in sight. Yet it is not a protection; on the
contrary, it is the reverse, and, like the dazzling
white plumage so attractive to birds of prey, a
direct disadvantage, informing all enemies for
leagues around of its whereabouts. It is not, there-
fore, strange that wherever pumas are found, deer
are never very abundant; the only wonder is that,
like the ancient horse of America, they have not
become extinct.

The gauchos of the pampas, however, give a
reason for the powerful smell of the male deer;
and, after some hesitation, I have determined to
set itdown here, for the reader to accept or reject,
as he thinks proper. I neither believe nor dis-
believe it; for although I do not put great faith
in gaucho natural history, my own observations
have not infrequently confirmed statements of
theirs, which a sceptical person would have regarded
as wild indeed. To give one instance: I heard a
gaucho relate that while out riding he had been
pursued for a considerable distance by a large
spider; his hearers laughed at him for a romancer ;
but as I myself had been attacked and pursued,
both when on foot and on horseback, by a large
wolf-spider, common on the pampas, I did not join
in the laugh. They say that the effluvium of C.

campestris is abhorrent to snakes of all kinds, just
;
160 The Naturalist in La Plata.

as pyrethrum powder is to most insects, and even
go so far as to describe its effect as fatal to them;
according to this, the smell is therefore a pro-
tection to the deer. In places where venomous
snakes are extremely abundant, asin the Sierra
district on the southern pampas of Buenos Ayres,
the gaucho frequently ties a strip of the male
deer’s skin, which retains its powerful odour for an
indefinite time, round the neck of a valuable horse
as a protection. Ii is certain that domestic animals
are frequently lost here through snake-bites. The
most common poisonous species—the Craspedo-
cephalus alternatus, called Vivora de la Cruz in the
vernacular—has neither bright colour nor warning
rattle to keep off heavy hoofs, and is moreover of
so sluggish a temperament that it will allow itself
to be trodden on before stirring, with the result
that its fangs are not infrequently struck into the
nose or foot of browsing beast. Considering, then,
the conditions in which C. campestris is placed—
and it might also be supposed that venomous snakes
have in past times been much more numerous than
they are now—it is not impossible to believe that
the powerful smell it emits has been made protec-
tive, especially when we see in other species how
repulsive odours have been turned to account by
the principle of natural selection.

After all, perhaps the wild naturalist of the
pampas knows what he is about when he ties a
strip of deer-skin to the neck of his steed and
turns him loose to graze among the snakes.

The gaucho also affirms that the deer cherishes
a wonderful animosity against snakes; that it be«
LHumble-Bees and other Matters. 161

comes greatly excited when it secs one, and pro-
ceeds at once to destroy it; they say, by running
round and round it in a circle, emitting its violent
smell in larger measure, until the snake dies of
suffocation. It is hard to believe that the effect
can be so great ; but that the deer is a snake hater
and killer is certainly true: in North America,
Ceylon, and other districts deer have been observed
excitedly leaping on serpents, and killing them with
their sharp cutting hoofs.
CHAPTER XII.

A NOBLE WASP.
(Monedula punctata.)

Natoratists, like kings and emperors, have their
favourites, and as my zoological sympathies, which
are wider than my knowledge, embrace all classes
of beings, there are of course several insects for
which I have a special regard; a few in each of
the principal orders. My chief favourite among
the hymenopteras is the one representative of the
curious genus Monedula known in La Plata. It is
handsome and has original habits, but it is specially
interesting to me for another reason: I can re-
member the time when it was extremely rare on
the pampas, so rare that in boyhood the sight of
one used to be a great event to me; and I have
watched its rapid increase year by year till it has
come to be one of our commonest species. Its
singular habits and intelligence give it a still better
claim to notice. It is a big, showy, loud-buzzing
insect, with pink head and legs, wings with brown
reflections, and body encircled with alternate bands
of black and pale gold, and has a preference for
large composite flowers, on the honey of which it
feeds. Its young is, however, an insect-eater ; but
the Monedula does not, like other burrowing or
A noble Wasp. 163

sand wasps, put away a store of insects or spiders,
partially paralyzed, as a provision for the grub till
it reaches the pupa state; it actually supplies the
grub with fresh-caught insects as long as food is
required, killing the prey it captures outright, and
bringing it in to its young; so that its habits, in
this particular, are more bird- than wasp-like.

The wasp lays its solitary egg at the extremity
of a hole it excavates for itself on a bare hard piece
of ground, and many holes are usually found close
together. When the grub—for I have never been
able to find more than one in a hole—has come out
from the egg, the parent begins to bring in insects,
carefully filling up the mouth of the hole with loose
earth after every visit. Without this precaution,
which entails a vast amount of labour, I do not
believe one grub out of every fifty would survive,
so overrun are these barren spots of ground used
as breeding-places with hunting spiders, ants, and
tiger-beetles. The grub is a voracious eater, but
the diligent mother brings in as much as it can
devour. I have often found as many as six or
seven insects, apparently fresh killed, and not yet
touched by the pampered little glutton, coiled up in
the midst of them waiting for an appetite.

The Monedula is an adroit fly-catcher, for
though it kills numbers of fire-flies and other insects,
flies are always preferred, possibly because they are
so little encumbered with wings, and are also more
easily devoured. It occasionally captures insects
on the wing, but the more usual method is to
pounce down on its prey when it is at rest. At
one time, before I had learnt their habits, I used
164 Lhe Naturalist in La Plata.

frequently to be startled by two or three or more
of these wasps rushing towards my face, and con-
tinuing hovering before it, loudly buzzing, attending
me in my walks about the fields, The reason of
this curious proceeding is that the Monedula preys
largely on stinging flies, having learnt fram expe-
rience that the stinging fly will generally neglect
its own safety when it has once fastened on a good
spot to draw blood from. When a man or horse
stands perfectly motionless the wasps take no
notice, but the moment any movement is made of
hand, tail, or stamping hoof, they rush to the
rescue, expecting to find a stinging fly. On the
other hand, the horse has learnt to know and value
this fly-scourge, and will stand very quietly with
half a dozen loud wasps hovering in an alarming
manner close to his head, well knowing that every
fly that settles on him will be instantly snatched
away, and that the boisterous Monedula is a better
protection even than the tail—which, by the way,
the horse wears very long in Buenos Ayres.

I have, in conclusion, to relate an incident I once
witnessed, and which does not show the Monedula
in a very amiable light. I was leaning over a gate
watching one of these wasps feeding on a sun-
flower. A small leaf-cutting bee was hurrying
about with its shrill busy hum in the vicinity, and
in due time came to the sunflower and settled on
it. The Monedula became irritated, possibly at the
shrill voice and bustling manner of its neighbour,
and, after watching it for a few moments on the
flower, deliberately rushed at and drove it off.
The leaf-cutter quickly returned, however—for bees
A noble Wasp. 165

are always extremely averse to leaving a flower
unexplored—but was again driven away with threats
and demonstrations on the part of the Monedula.
The little thing went off and sunned itself on a leaf
for a time, then returned to the flower, only to be
instantly ejected again. Other attempts were made,

 

A Bee’s Revenge,

but the big wasp now kept a jealous watch on its
neighbour’s movements, and would not allow it to
come within several inches of the flower without
throwing itself into a threatening attitude. The
defeated bee retired to sun itself once more, appa-
rently determined to wait for the big tyrant to go
away; but the other seemed to know what was
166 The Naturalist in La Plata.

wanted, and spitefully made up its mind to stay
where it was. The leaf-cutter then gave up the
contest. Suddenly rising up into the air, it hovered,
hawk-like, above the Monedula for a moment, then
pounced down on its back, and clung there,
furiously biting, until its animosity was thoroughly
appeased; then it flew off, leaving the other
master of the field certainly, but greatly discom-
posed, and perhaps seriously injured about the
base of the wings. I was rather surprised that
they were not cut quite off, for a leaf-cutting bee -
can use its teeth as deftly as a tailor can his
shears.

Doubtless to bees, as to men, revenge is sweeter
than honey. But, in the face of mental science,
can a creature as low down in the scale of organiza-
tion as a leaf-cutting bee be credited with anything
so intelligent and emotional as deliberate anger and
revenge, “which implies the need of retaliation to
satisfy the feelings of the person (or bee) offended ?””
According to Bain (Mental and Moral Science) only
the highest animals—stags and bulls he mentions—
can be credited with the developed form of anger,
which he describes as an excitement caused by pain,
reaching the centres of activity, and containing an
impulse knowingly to inflict suffermeg on another
sentient being. Here, if man only is meant, the
spark is perhaps accounted for, but not the barrel
of gunpowder. ‘The explosive material is, however,
found in the breast of nearly every living creature.
The bull—ranking high according to Bain, though
I myself should place him nearly on a level mentally
A noble Wasp. 167

with the majority of the lower animals, both verte-
brate and insect—is capable of a wrath exceeding
that of Achilles; and yet the fact that a red rag
can manifestly have no associations, personal or
political, for the bull, shows how unintellectual
his anger must be. Another instance of mis-
directed anger in nature, not quite so familiar as
that of the bull and red rag, is used as an
illustration by one of the prophets: ‘‘ My heritage
is unto me as a speckled bird; the birds round
about are against it.’ I have frequently seen the
birds of a thicket gather round some singularly
marked accidental visitor, and finally drive him
with great anger from the neighbourhood. Possibly
association comes in a little here, since any bird,
even a small one, strikingly coloured or marked,
might be looked on as a bird of prey.

The flesh-fly laying its eggs on the carrion-
flower is only a striking instance of the mistakes
all instincts are liable to, never more markedly
than in the inherited tendency to fits of frenzied
excitement: the feeling is frequently excited by
the wrong object, and cxplodes at inoppcertune
moments.
CHAPTER XIII.
NATURE'S NIGHT LIGHTS.
(Remarks about Fireflies and other matters.)

It was formerly supposed that the light of the fire-
fly (in any family possessing the luminous power)
was a safecuard against the attacks of other insects,
rapacious and nocturnal in their habits. This was
Kirby and Spence’s notion, but it might just as well
be Pliny’s for all the attention it would receive from
modern entomologists: just at present any ob-
server who lived in the pre-Darwin days is regarded
as one of the ancients. The reasons given for the
notion or theory in the celebrated Introduction to
Entomology were not conclusive; nevertheless it
was not an improbable supposition of the authors’ ;
while the theory which has taken its place in recent
zoological writings seems in every way even less
satisfactory.

Let us first examine the antiquated theory, as it
must now be called. By bringing a raptorial insect
and a firefly together, we find that the flashing light
of the latter does actually scare away the former,
and is therefore, for the moment, a protection as
effectual as the camp-fire the traveller lights in a
district abounding with beasts of prey. Notwith-
Nature's Night Lights. 169

standing this fact, and assuming that we have here
the whole reason of the existence of the light-
emitting power, a study of the firefly’s habits com-
pels us to believe that the insect would be just as
well off without the power as with it. Probably it
experiences some pleasure in emitting flashes of
light during its evening pastimes, but this could
scarcely be considered an advantage in its struggle
for existence, and it certainly does not account for
the possession of the faculty.

About the habits of Pyrophorus, the large tropical
firefly which has the seat of its luminosity on the
upper surface of the thorax, nothing definite appears
to be known; but it has been said that this instinct
is altogether nocturnal. The Pyrophorus is only
found in the sub-tropical portion of the Argentine
country, and I have never met with it. With the
widely-separated Cratomorphus, and the tortoise-
shaped Aspisoma, which emit the light from the
abdomen, I am familiar; one species of Crato-
morphus—a long slender insect with yellow wing-
cases marked with two parallel black lines—is ‘the
firefly? known to every one and excessively abun-
dant in the southern countries of La Plata. This
insect is strictly diurnal in its habits—as much so,
in fact, as diurnal butterflies. They are seen flying
about, wooing their mates, and feeding on composite
and umbelliferous flowers at all hours of the day,
and are as active as wasps during the full glare of
noon. Birds do not feed on them, owing to the
disagreeable odour, resembling that of phosphorus,
which they emit, and probably because they are
found to be uneatable; but their insect enemies are
170 The Naturalist in La Plata.

not so squeamish, and devour them readily, just as
they also do the blister-fly, which one would imagine
a morsel fitted to disagree with any stomach. One
of their enemies is the Monedula wasp; another,
a fly, of the rapacious Asilide family ; and this fly
is also a wasp in appearance, having a purple body
and bright red wings, like a Pepris, and this mimetic
resemblance doubtless serves it as a protection
against birds. A majority of raptorial insects are,
however, nocturnal, and from all these enemies that
go about under cover of night, the firefly, as Kirby
and Spence rightly conjectured, protects itself, or
rather is involuntarily protected, by means of its
frequent flashing light, We are thus forced to the
conclusion that, while the common house fly and
many other diurnal insects spend a considerable
portion of the daylight in purely sportive exercises,
the firefly, possessing in its light a protection from
nocturnal enemies, puts off its pastimes until the
evening; then, when its carnival of two or three
hours’ duration is over, retires also to rest, putting
out its candle, and so exposing itself to the dangers
which surround other diurnal species during the
hours of darkness. I have spoken of the firefly’s
pastimes advisedly, for I have really never been able
to detect it doing anything in the evening beyond
flitting aimlessly about, like house flies in a room,
hovering and revolving in company by the hour,
apparently foramusement. Thus, the more closely
we look at the facts, the more unsatisfactory does
the explanation seem. That the firefly should have
become possessed of so elaborate a machinery, pro-
ducing incidentally such splendid results, merely as
Nature's Night Lights. 171

a protection against one set of enemies for a portion
only of the period during which they are active, is
altogether incredible.

The current theory, which we owe to Belt, is a
prettier one. Certain insects (also certain Batra-
chians, reptiles, &c.) are unpalatable to the rapa-
cious kinds; it is therefore a direct advantage
to these unpalatable species to be distinguishable
from all the persecuted, and the more conspicuous
and well-known they are, the less likely are they to
be mistaken by birds, insectivorous mammals, &c.,
for eatable kinds and caught or injured. Hence we
find that many such species have acquired for their
protection very brilliant or strongly-contrasted
colours-—warning colours—which insect-eaters come
to know.

The firefly, a soft-bodied, slow-flying insect, is
easily caught and injured, but it is not fit for food,
and, therefore, says the theory, lest it should be
injured or killed by mistake, it has a fiery spark to
warn enemies—birds, bats, and rapacious insects—
that it is uneatable.

The theory of warning colours is an excellent
one, but it has been pushed too far. We have
seen that one of the most common fireflies is
diurnal in habits, or, at any rate, that it performs
all the important business of its life by day, when
it has neither bright colour nor light to warn its
bird enemies ; and out of every hundred species of
insect-eating birds at least ninety-nine are diurnal.
Raptorial insects, as I have said, feed freely on fire-
flies, so that the supposed warning is not for them,
and it would be hard to believe that the magnificent
172 The Naturalist in La Plata.

display made by luminous insects is useful only in
preventing accidental injuries to them from a few
crepuscular bats and goatsuckers. And to believe
even this we should first have to assume that bats
and goatsuckers are differently constituted from all
other creatures; for in other animals—insects, birds,
and mammalians—the appearance of fire by night
seems to confuse and frighten, but it certainly
cannot be said to warn, in the sense in which
that word is used when we speak of the brilliant
colours of some butterflies, or even of the gestures
of some venomous snakes, and of the sounds they
emit.

Thus we can see that, while the old theory of
Kirby and Spence had some facts to support it, the
one now in vogue is purely fanciful. Until some
better suggestion is made, it would perhaps be as
well to consider the luminous organ as having “ no
very close and direct relation to present habits of
life.’ About their present habits, however, especi-
ally their crepuscular habits, there is yet much to
learn. One thing I have observed in them has
always seemed very strange tome. Occasionally an
individual insect is seen shining with a very large and
steady light, or with a light which very gradually
decreases and increases in power, and at such times
it is less active than at others, remaining for long
intervals motionless on the leaves, or moving with
a very slow flight. In South America a firefly dis-
playing this abnormal splendour is said to be dying,
and it is easy to imagine how such a notion origi-
nated. The belief is, however, erroneous, for some-
times, on very rare occasions, all the insects in one
Nature’s Night Lights. 173

place are simultaneously affected in the same way,
and at such times they mass themselves together in
myriads, as if for migration, or for some other great
purpose. Mr. Bigg-Wither, in South Brazil, and
D’Albertis, in New Guinea, noticed these firefly
gatherings; I also once had the rare good fortune
to witness a phenomenon of the kind on a very grand
scale. Riding on the pampas one dark evening an
hour after sunset, and passing from high ground
overgrown with giant thistles to a low plain covered
with long grass, bordering a stream of water, I
found it all ablaze with myriads of fireflies. I
noticed that all the insects gave out an exceptionally
large, brilliant light, which shone almost steadily.
The long grass was thickly studded with them,
while they literally swarmed in the air, all moving
up the valley with a singularly slow and languid
flight. When 1 galloped down into this river of
phosphorescent fire, my horse plunged and snorted
with alarm. I succeeded at length in quieting him,
and then rode slowly through, compelled to keep
my mouth and eyes closed, so thickly did the insects
rain on to my face. The air was laden with the
sickening phosphorous smell they emit, but when I
had once got free of the broad fiery zone, stretching
away on either hand for miles along the moist valley,
I stood still and gazed back for some time on a scene
the most wonderful and enchanting I have ever
witnessed.

The fascinating and confusing effect which the
appearance of fire at night has on animals is a most
174 The Naturalist iu La Plata.

interesting subject; and although it is not pro-
bable that anything very fresh remains to be said
about it, I am tempted to add here the results of
my own experience.

When travelling by night, I have frequently
been struck with the behaviour of my horse at the
sight of natural fire, or appearance of fire, always
so different from that caused by the sight of fire
artificially created. The steady gleam from the
open window or door of a distant house, or even
the unsteady wind-tossed flame of some lonely
camp-fire, has only served to rouse a fresh spirit in
him and the desire to reach it; whereas those in-
frequent displays of fire which nature exhibits, such
as lightning, or the ignis fatuus, or even a cloud of
fireflies, has always produced a disquieting effect.
Experience has evidently taught the domestic horse
to distinguish a light kindled by man from all
others; and, knowing its character, he is just as
‘ well able as his rider to go towards it without ex-
periencing that confusion of mind caused by a glare
in the darkness, the origin and nature of which is
a mystery. The artificially-lighted fire is to the
horse only the possible goal of the journey, and is
associated with the thought of rest and food. Wild
animals, as a rule, at any rate in thinly-settled
districts, do not know the meaning of any fire; it
only excites curiosity and fear in them; and they
are most disturbed at the sight of fires made by
man, which are brighter and steadier than most
natural fires. We can understand this sensation
in animals, since we ourselves experience a similar
one (although in a less degree and not associated
Nature's Night Lights. [75

with fear) in the effect which mere brightness has
on us, both by day and nicht.

On riding across the monotonous grey Patagonian
uplands, where often for hours one sees not the
faintest tinge of bright colour, the intense glowing
crimson of a cactus-frnit, or the broad shining
white bosom of the Patagonian eagle-buzzard
(Buteo erythronotus), perched on the summit of a
distant bush, has had a strangely fascinating effect
on me, so that I have been unable to take my eyes
off it as long as it continued before me. Or in
passing through extensive desolate marshes, the
dazzling white plumage of a stationary egret has
exercised the same attraction. At night we ex-
perience the sensation in a greater degree, when the
silver sheen of the moon makes a broad path on
the water; or when a meteor leaves a glowing
track across the sky; while a still more familiar
instance is seen in the powerful attraction on the
sight of glowing embers in a darkened room. The
mere brightness, or vividness of the contrast,
fascinates the mind; but the effect on man is
comparatively weak, owing to his fiery education
aud to his familiarity with brilliant dyes artificially
obtained from nature. How strong this attraction
of mere brightness, even where there is no mystery
about it, is to wild animals is shown by birds of
prey almost invariably singling out white or bright-
plumaged birds for attack where bright and sober-
coloured kinds are mingled together. By night the
attraction is immeasurably greater than by day,
and the light of a fire steadily gazed at quickly

confuses the mind. The fires which travellers make
N
176 The Naturalist in La Plata.

for their protection actually serve to attract the
beasts of prey, but the confusion and fear caused by
the bright glare makes it safe for the traveller to
lie down and sleep in the light. Mammals do not
lose their heads altogether, because they are walking
on firm ground where muscular exertion and an
exercise of judgment are necessary at every step ;
whereas birds floating buoyantly and with little
effort through the air are quickly bewildered.
Incredible numbers of migratory birds kill them-
selves by dashing against the windows of light-
houses; on bright moonlight nights the voyagers
are comparatively safe; but during dark cloudy
weather the slaughter is very great; over six
hundred birds were killed by striking a lighthouse
in Central America in a single night. On insects
the effect is the same as on the higher animals: on
the ground they are attracted by the light, but
keep, like wolves and tigers, at a safe distance
from it; when rushing through the air and unable
to keep their eyes from it they fly into it, or else
revolve about it, until, coming too close, thcir
wings are singed.

I find that when I am on horseback, going at a
swinging gallop, a bright light affects me far more
powerfully than when I am trudging along on foot.
A person mounted on a bicycle and speeding over
a level plain on a dark night, with nothing to guide
him except the idea of the direction in his mind,
would be to some extent in the position of the
migratory bird. An exceptionally brilliant ignis
fatuus flying before him would affect him as the
gleam of a lamp placed high above the surface
Nature's Night Lights. 177

affects the migrants: he would not be able to keep
his eyes from it, but would quickly lose the sense
of direction, and probably end his career much as
the bird does, by breaking his machine and perhaps
his bones against some unseen obstruction in the
way.
CHAPTER XIV.
FACTS AND THOUGHTS ABOUT SPIDERS.

Som time ago, while turning over a quantity of
rubbish in a little-used room, I disturbed a large
black spider. Rushing forth, just in time to save
itself from destruction through the capsizing of a
pile of books, it paused for one moment, took a
swift comprehensive glance at the position, then
scuttled away across the floor, and was lost in an
obscure corner of the room. This incident served
to remind me of a fact I was nearly forgetting, that
England is not a spiderless country. A foreigner,
however intelligent, coming from warmer regions,
might very easily make that mistake. In Buenos
Ayres, the land of my nativity, earth teems with
these interesting little creatures. They abound in
and on the water, they swarm in the grass and
herbage, which everywhere glistens with the silvery
veil they spin over it. Indeed it is scarcely an
exaggeration to say that there is an atmosphere of
spiders, for they are always floating about invisible
in the air; their filmy threads are unfelt when they
fly against you; and uften enough you are not even
aware of the little arrested aeronaut hurrying over
your face with feet lighter than the lightest thistle-
down.
Facts and Thoughts about Spiders. 179

It is somewhat strange that although, where
other tribes of living creatures are concerned, I am
something of a naturalist, spiders I have always
observed and admired in a non-scientific spirit, and
this must be my excuse for mentioning the habits
of some spiders without giving their specific names
—an omission always vexing to the severely-techni-
cal naturalist. They have ministered to the love of
the beautiful, the grotesque, and the marvellous in
me; but I have never collected a spider, and if I
wished to preserve one should not know how to do
it. Ihave been “familiar with the face” of these
monsters so long that I have even learnt to love
them; and I believe that if Emerson rightly predicts
that spiders are amongst the things to be expelled
from earth by the perfected man of the future, then
a great charm and element of interest will be lost
to nature. Though loving them, I cannot, of
course, feel the same degree of affection towards all
the members of so various a family. The fairy
gossamer, scarce seen, a creature of wind and sun-
shine; the gem-like Epeira in the centre of its
starry web; even the terrestrial Salticus, with its
puma-like strategy, certainly appeal more to our
zesthetic feelings than does the slow heavy Mygale,
looking at a distance of twenty yards away, as he
approaches you, like a gigantic cockroach mounted
on stilts. ‘The rash fury with which the female
wolf-spider defends her young is very admirable;
but the admiration she excites is mingled with other
feelings when we remember that the brave mother
proves to her consort a cruel and cannibal spouse.

Possibly my affection for spiders is due in a great
180 The Naturalist in La Plata.

measure to the compassion I have always felt for
them. Pity, ’tis said, is akin to love; and who can
help experiencing that tender emotion that considers
the heavy affliction nature has Jaid on the spiders
in compensation for the paltry drop of venom with
which she, unasked, endowed them! And here, of
course, I am alluding to the wasps. These insects,
with a refinement of cruelty, prefer not to kill their
victims outright, but merely maim them, then house
them in cells where the grubs can vivisect them at
leisure. This is one of those revolting facts the
fastidious soul cannot escape from in warm climates ;
for in and out of open windows and doors, all day
long, all the summer through, comes the busy
beautiful mason-wasp. A long body, wonderfully
slim at the waist, bright yellow legs and thorax,
and a dark crimson abdomen,—what object can be
prettier to look at? But in her life this wasp is
not beautiful. At home in summer they were the
pests of my life, for nothing would serve to keep
them out. One day, while we were seated at dinner,
a clay nest, which a wasp had succeeded in complet-
ing unobserved, detached itself from the ceiling and
fell with a crash on to the table, where it was
shattered to pieces, scattering a shower of green
half-living spiders round it. I shall never forget
the feeling of intense repugnance I experienced at
the sight, coupled with detestation of the pretty
but cruel little architect. There is, amongst our
wasps, even a more accomplished spider-scourge
than the mason-wasp, and I will here give a brief
account of its habits. On the grassy pampas, dry
bare spots of soil are resorted to by a class of
Facts and Thoughts about Spiders. 181

spiders that either make or take little holes in the
ground to reside in, and from which they rush forth
to seize their prey. They also frequently sit inside
their dens and patiently wait there for the intrusion
of some bungling insect. Now, in summer, to a
dry spot of ground like this, comes a small wasp,
scarcely longer than a blue-bottle fly, body and
wings of a deep shining purplish blue colour, with
only a white mark like a collar on the thorax. It
flirts its blue wings, hurrying about here and there,
and is extremely active, and of a slender graceful
figure—the type of an assassin. It visits and
explores every crack and hole in the ground, and,
if you watch it attentively, you will at length see
it, on arriving at a hole, give a little start back-
wards. It knows that a spider lies concealed
within. Presently, having apparently matured a
plan of attack, it disappears into the hole and
remains there for some time. Then, just when you
are beginning to think that the little blue explorer
has been trapped, out it rushes, flying in terror,
apparently, from the spider who issues close behind
in hot pursuit; but, before they are three inches
away, from the hole, quick as lightning the wasp
turns on its follower, and the two become locked
together in a deadly embrace. Looking like one
insect, they spin rapidly round for a few moments,
then up springs the wasp —victorious. The
wretched victim is not dead; its legs move a
little, but its soft body is paralyzed, and lies
collapsed, flabby, and powerless as a stranded jelly-
fish. And this is the invariable result of every
such conflict. In other classes of beings, even the
182 The Naturalist in La Plata.

weakest hunted thing occasionally succeeds in
inflicting pain on its persecutor, and the small
trembling mouse, unable to save itself, can sometimes
make the cat shriek with pain; but there is no weak
spot in the wasp’s armour, no fatal error of judg-
ment, not even an accident, ever to save the
wretched victim from its fate. And now comes the
most iniquitous part of the proceeding. When the
wasp has sufficiently rested after the struggle, it
deliberately drags the disabled spider back into its
own hole, and, having packed it away at the
extremity, lays an egg alongside of it, then, coming
out again, gathers dust and rubbish with which it
fills up and obliterates the hole; and, having thus
concluded its Machiavellian task, it flies cheerfully
off in quest of another victim,

The extensive Epeira family supply the mason-
wasps and other spider-killers with the majority of
their victims. These spiders have soft, plump,
succulent bodies like pats of butter; they inhabit
trees and bushes chiefly, where their geometric webs
betray their whereabouts; they are timid, com-
paratively innocuous, and reluctant to quit the
shelter of their green bower, made of a rolled-up
leaf; so that there are many reasons why they
should be persecuted. They exhibit a great variety
of curious forms; many are also very richly coloured;
but even their brightest hues—orange, silver, scarlet
—have not been given without regard to the colour-
ing of their surroundings. Green-leafed bushes are
frequented by vividly green Epeiras, but the imita-
tive resemblance does not quite end here. The
green spider’s method of escape, when the bush is
Facts and Thoughts about Spiders. 183

roughly shaken, 1s to drop itself down on the earth,
where it lies simulating death. In falling, it drops
just as a green leaf would drop, that is, not quite so
rapidly as a round, solid body like a beetle or
spider. Now in the bushes there is another Epeira,
in size and form like the last, but differing in colour;
for instead of a vivid green, it is of a faded yellowish
white—the exact hue of a dead, dried-up leaf. This
spider, when it lets itself drop—for it has the same
protective habit as the other—falls not so rapidly
as a green freshly broken off leaf or as the green
spider would fall, but with a slower motion, precisely
like a leaf withered up till it has become almost
light as a feather. It is not difficult to imagine how
this comes about: either a thicker line, or a greater
stiffness or tenacity of the viscid fluid composing
the web and attached to the point the spider drops
from, causes one to fall slower than the other. But
how many tentative variations in the stiffness of the
web material must there have been before the precise
degree was attained enabling the two distinct species,
differing in colour, to complete their resemblance to
falling leaves—a fresh green leaf in one case and a
dead, withered leaf in the other !

The Tetragnatha—a genus of the Epeira family,
and known also in England—are small spiders
found on the margin of streams. Their bodies are
slender, oblong, and resembling a canoe in shape ;
and when they sit lengthwise on a stem or blade of
grass, their long, hair-like legs arranged straight
before and behind them, it is difficult to detect
them, so closely do they resemble a discoloured
stripe on the herbage. A species of Tetragnatha
184 The Naturalist in La Plata.

with a curious modification of structure abounds on
the pampas. The long leg of this spider is no
thicker than a bristle from a pig’s back, but at the
extremity it is flattened and broad, giving it a
striking resemblance to an oar. These spiders are
only found in herbage overhanging the borders of
streams: they are very numerous, and, having a
pugnacious temper, are incessantly quarrelling ; and
it frequently happens that in these encounters, or
where they are pursuing each other through the
leaves, they drop into the water below. I believe,
in fact, that they often drop themselves purposely
into it as the readiest means of escape when hard
pressed. When this happens, the advantage of the
modified structure of the legs is seen. The fallen
spider, sitting boat-like on the surface, throws out
its long legs, and, dipping the broad ends into the
water, literally rows itself rapidly to land.

The gossamer-spider, most spiritual ofliving things,
of which there are numerous species, some extremely
beautiful in colouring and markings, is the most
namerous of our spiders. Only when the declining
sun flings a broad track of shiny silver light on the
plain does one get some faint conception of the un-
numbered millions of these buoyant little creatures
busy weaving their gauzy veil over the earth and
floating unseen, like an ethereal vital dust, in the
atmosphere.

This spider carries within its diminutive abdomen
a secret which will possibly serve to vex subtle
intellects for a long time to come; for it is hard
to believe that merely by mechanical force, even aided
by currents of air, a creature half as big as a barley
Facts and Thoughts about Spiders. 185

grain can instantaneously shoot out filaments twenty
or thirty inches long, and by means of which it
floats itself in the air.

Naturalists are now giving a great deal of atten-
tion to the migrations of birds in diiferent parts of
the world: might not insect and spider migrations
be included with advantage to science in their ob-
servations? The common notion is that the
gossamer makes use of its unique method of locomo-
tion only to shift its quarters, impelled by want of
food or unfavourable conditions—perhaps only by
a roving disposition. I believe that besides these
incessant fittings about from place to place
throughout the summer the gossamer-spiders have
great periodical migrations which are, as a rule, in-
visible, since a single floating web cannot be re-
marked, and each individual rises and floats away
by itself from its own locality when influenced by
the instinct. When great numbers of spiders rise
up simultaneously over a large area, then, some-
times, the movement forces itself on our attention ;
for at such times the whole sky may be filled with
visible masses of floating web. All the great move-
ments of gossamers I have observed have occurred
in the autumn, or, at any rate, several weeks after
the summer solstice; and, like the migrations of
birds at the same season of the year, have been in
a northerly direction. I do not assert or believe
that the migratory instinct in the gossamer is uni-
versal. In a moist island, like England, for
instance, where the condition of the atmosphere is
seldom favourable, and where the little voyagers
would often be blown by adverse winds to perish
186 The Naturalist in La Plata.

far out at sea, it is difficult to believe that such
migrations take place. But where they inhabit a
vast area of land, as in South America, extending
without interruption from the equator to the cold
Magellanic regions, and where there is a long
autumn of dry, hot weather, then such an instinct
as migration might have been developed. For this
is not a faculty merely of a few birds: the impulse
to migrate at certain seasons affects birds, insects,
and even mammals. In a few birds only is it
highly developed, but the elementary feeling, out of
which the wonderful habit of the swallow has
grown, exists widely throughout animated nature.
On the continent of Europe it also seems probable
that a great autumnal movement of these spiders
takes place; although, I must confess, I have no
grounds for this statement, except that the floating
gossamer is called in Germany ‘‘ Der fliegender
Summer ’’—the flying or departing summer.

I have stated that all migrations of gossamers I
have witnessed have been in the autumn; except-
ing in one instance, these flights occurred when the
weather was still hot and dry. The exceptionally
late migration was on March 22—a full month after
the departure of martins, humming-birds, fly-
catchers, and most other true bird-migrants. It
struck me as being so remarkable, and seems to
lend so much force to the idea I have suggested,
that I wish to give here an exact copy of the entries
made at the time and on the spot in my notebook.

“March 22. This afternoon, while I was out
shooting, the gossamer-spiders presented an ap-
pearance quite new to me. Walking along astream
Facts and Thoughts about Spiders. 187

(the Conchitas, near Buenos Ayres), I noticed a
broad white line skirting the low wet ground. This
I found was caused by gossamer web lying in such
quantities over the earth as almost to hide the grass
and thistles under it. The white zone was about
twenty yards wide, and outside it only a few
scattered webs were visible on the grass; its exact
length I did not ascertain, but followed it for about
two miles without finding the end. The spiders
were So numerous that they continually baulked
one another in their efforts to rise in the air. As
soon as one threw out its lines they would become
entangled with those of another spider, lanced out
at the same moment; both spiders would imme-
diately seem to know the cause of the trouble, for
as soon as their lines fouled they would rush
angrily towards each other, each trying to drive
the other from the elevation. Notwithstanding
these difficulties, numbers were continually floating
off on the breeze which blew from the south.

“IT noticed three distinct species: one with a
round scarlet. body; another, velvet black, with
large square cephalothorax and small pointed abdo-
men; the third and most abundant kind were of
different shades of olive green, and varied greatly
in size, the largest being fully a quarter of an inch
in leneth. Apparently these spiders had been
driven up from the low ground along the stream
where it was wet, and had congregated along the
borders of the dry ground in readiness to migrate.

‘95th. Went again to visit the spiders, scarcely
expecting to find them, as, since first seeing them,
we have had much wind and rain. To my surprise
188 The Naturalist in La Plata.

I found them in greatly increased numbers: on the
tops of cardoons, posts, and other elevated situa-
tions they were literally lying together in heaps.
Most of them were large and of the olive-coloured
species; their size had probably prevented them
from getting away earlier, but they were now float-
ing off in great numbers, the weather being calm
and tolerably dry. To-day I noticed a new species
with a grey body, elegantly striped with black, and
pink legs—a very pretty spider.

26th. Went again to-day and found that the
whole vast army of gossamers, with the exception
of a few stragglers sitting on posts and dry stalks,
had vanished. They had taken advantage of the
short spell of fine weather we are now having, after
an unusually wet and boisterous autumn, to make
their escape.”

Here it seemed to me that a conjunction of cir-
cumstances—first, the unfavourable season prevent-
ing migration at the proper time, and secondly, the
strip of valley out of which the spiders had been
driven to the higher ground till they were massed
together —only served to make visible and evident
that a vast annual migration takes place which we
have only to look closely for to discover.

One of the most original spiders iu Buenos Ayres
—mentally original, I mean—is a species of
Pholeus; a quiet, inoffensive creature found in
houses, and so abundant that they literally swarm
where they are not frequently swept away from
ceilings and obscure corners. Certainly it seems a
poor spider after the dynamical and migratory
gossamer ; but it happens, curiously enough, that a
Facts and Thoughts about Spiders, 189

study of the habits of this dusty domestic creature
leads us incidentally into the realms of fable and
romance. It is remarkable for the extreme length
of its legs, and resembles in colour and general ap-
pearance a crane fly, but is double the size of that
insect. It has a singular method of protecting
itself: when attacked or approached even, gathering
its feet together and fastening them to the centre
of its web, it swings itself round and round with
the velocity of a whirligig, so that it appears like a
mist on the web, offering no point for an enemy to
strike at. When a fly is captured the spider
approaches it cautiously and spins a web round it,
continually narrowing the circle it describes, until
the victim is inclosed in a cocoon-like covering.
This is a common method with spiders; but the
intelligence—for I can call it by no other word—of
the Pholcus has supplemented this instinctive pro-
cedure with a very curious and unique habit. The
Pholcus, in spite of its size, is a weak creature,
possessing little venom to despatch its prey with,
so that it makes a long and laborious task of killing
a fly. A fly when caught in a web is a noisy crea-
ture, and it thus happens that when the Daddy-
longlegs—as Anglo-Argentines have dubbed this
species—succeeds in snaring a captive the shrill
outrageous cries of the victim are heard for a long
time—often for ten or twelve minutes. This noise
greatly excites other spiders in the vicinity, and
presently they are seen quitting their webs and
hurrying to the scene of conflict. Sometimes the
captor is driven off, and then the strongest or most
daring spider carries away the fly. But where a
190 The Naturalist in La Plata,

large colony are allowed to continue for a long
time in undisturbed possession of a ceiling, when
one has caught a fly he proceeds rapidly to throw a
covering of web over it, then, cutting it away, drops
it down and lets it hang suspended by a line at a
distance of two or three feet from the ceiling. The
other spiders arrive on the scene, and after a short
investigation retreat to their own webs, and when
the coast is clear our spider proceeds to draw up
the captive fly, which is by this time exhausted
with its struggles.

Now, I have repeatedly remarked that all spiders,
when the shrill humming of an insect caught in a
web is heard near them, become agitated, like the
Pholeus, and will, in the same way, quit their own
webs and hurry to the point. the sound proceeds
from. This fact convinced me many years ago that
spiders are attracted by the sound of musical in-
struments, such as violins, concertinas, guitars, &c.,
simply because the sound produces the same effect
on them as the shrill buzzing of a captive fly. I
have frequently seen spiders come down walls or
from ceilings, attracted by the sound of a guitar,
softly played; and by gently touching metal strings,
stretched on a piece of wood, I have succeeded in
attracting spiders on to the strings, within two or
three inches of my fingers; and I always noticed
that the spiders seemed to be eagerly searching for
something which they evidently expected to find
there, moving about in an excited manner and look-
ing very hungry and fierce. I have no doubt that
Pelisson’s historical spider in the Bastille came
down in a moodand with a manner just as ferocious
Facts and Thoughts about Spiders. 19!

when the prisoner called it with musical sounds to
be fed.

The spiders I have spoken of up till now. are
timid, inoffensive creatures, chiefly of the Hpeira
family; but there are many others exceedingly
high-spirited and, like some of the most touchy
hymenopteras, always prepared to ‘‘ greatly quarrel ”’
over matters of little moment. The Mygales, of

 

“ttn,

OF act ewe

Mygale fusca, threatening.

which we have several species, are not to be treated
with contempt. One is extremely abundant on the
pampas, the Mygale fusca, a veritable monster,
covered with dark brown hair, and called in the
vernacular aranea peluda—hairy spider. In the
hot month of December these spiders take to roam-
ing about on the open plain, and are then every-

where seen travelling in a straight line with a slow
oO
192 The Naturalist in La Plata.

even pace. They are very great in attitudes, and
when one is approached it immediately throws itself
back, like a pugilist preparing for an encounter,
and stands up so erect on its four hind feet tuat the
under surface of its body is displayed. Humble-
bees are commonly supposed to carry the palm in
attitudinizing; and it is wonderful to see the
grotesque motions of these irascible insects when
their nest is approached, elevating their abdomens
and two or three legs at a time, so that they re-
semble a troupe of acrobats balancing themselves
on their heads or hands, and kicking their legs
about in the air. And to impress the intruder with
the dangerous significance of this display they hum
a shrill warning or challenge, and stab at the air
with their naked stings, from which limpid drops of
venom are seen to exude. These threatening
gestures probably have an effect. In the case of
the hairy spider, I do not think any creature, how-
ever stupid, could mistake its meaning when it
stands suddenly up, a figure horribly grotesque ;
then, dropping down on all eights, charges violently
forwards. Their long, shiny black, sickle-shaped
falces are dangerous weapons. I knew a native
woman who had been bitten on the leg, and who,
after fourteen years, still suffered at intervals acute
pains in the limb.

The king of the spiders on the pampas is, how-
ever, not a Mygale, but a Lycosa of extraordinary
size, light grey in colour, with a black ring round
its middle. It is active and swift, and irritable to
such a degree that one can scarcely help thinking
that in this species nature has overshot her mark,
Facts and Thoughts about Spiders. 193

When a person passes near one—say, within three
or four yards of its lurking-place—it starts up and
gives chase, and will often follow for a distance of
thirty or forty yards. I came once very nearly
being bitten by one of these savage creatures.
Riding at an easy trot over the dry grass, I suddenly
observed a spider pursuing me, leaping swiftly along
and keeping up with my beast. I aimed a blow
with my whip, and the point of the lash struck the
ground close to it, when it instantly leaped upon
and ran up the lash, and was actually within three
or four inches of my hand when I flung the whip
from me.

The gauchos have avery quaint ballad which tells
that the city of Cordova was once invaded by an
army of monstrous spiders, and that the towns-
people went out with beating drums and flags flying
to repel the invasion, and that after firing several
volleys they were forced to turn and fly for their
lives. I have no doubt that a sudden great increase
of the man-chasing spiders, in a year exceptionally
favourable to them, suggested this fable to some
rhyming satirist of the town.

In conclusion of this part of my subject, I will
describe a single combat of a very terrible nature
I once witnessed between two little spiders belong-
ing to the same species. One had a small web
against a wall, and of this web the other coveted
possession. After vainly trying by a series of
strategic movements to drive out the lawful owner,
it rushed on to the web, and the two envenomed
little duellists closed in mortal combat. They did
nothing so vulgar and natural as to make use of
194 The Naturalist in La Plata.

their falces, and never once actually touched each
other, but the fight was none the less deadly.
Rapidly revolving about, or leaping over, or passing
under, each other, each endeavoured to impede or
entangle his adversary, and the dexterity with
which each avoided the cunningly thrown snare,
trying at the same time to entangle its opponent,
was wonderful to see. At length, after this equal
battle had raged for some time, one of the com-
batants made some fatal mistake, and for a moment
there occurred a break in his motions; instantly
the other perceived his advantage, and began leap-
ing backwards and forwards across his struggling
adversary with such rapidity as to confuse the sight,
producing the appearance of two spiders attacking
a third one lying between them. He then changed
his tactics, and began revolving round and round
his prisoner, and very soon the poor vanquished
wretch—the aggressor, let us hope, in the interests
of justice—was closely wrapped in a silvery cocoon,
which, unlike the cocoon the caterpillar weaves for
itself, was also its winding-sheet,

In the foregoing pages I have thrown together
some of the most salient facts I have noted ; but
the spider-world still remains to me a wonderland
of which IT know comparatively nothing. Nor is
any very intimate knowledge of spiders to be got
from books, though numberless lists of new species
are constantly being printed ; for they have not yet
had, like the social bees and ants, many loving and
patient chroniclers of their ways. The Hubers and
Facts and Thoughts about Spiders. 195

Lubbocks have been many; the Moggridges few.
But even a very slight study of these most versatile
and accomplished of nature’s children gives rise to
some interesting reflections. One fact that strikes
the mind very forcibly is the world-wide distribu-
tion of groups of species possessing highly developed
instincts. One is the zebra-striped Salticus, with its
unique strategy—that is to say, unique amongst
spiders. It is said that the Australian savage
approaches a kangaroo in the open by getting up in
sight of its prey and standing perfectly motionless
till he is regarded as an inanimate object, and every
time the animal’s attention wanders advancing a
step or two until sufficiently near to hurl his spear.
The Salticus approaches a fly in the same manner,
till near enough to make its spring. Another is
the Trapdoor spider. Another the Dolomedes, that
runs over the surface of the water in pursuit of its
prey, and dives down to escape from its enemies;
and, strangest of all, the Argyroneta, that has its
luminous dwelling at the bottom of streams; and
just as a mason carries bricks and mortar to its
building, so does this spider carry down bubbles of
air from the surface to enlarge its mysterious house,
in which it lays its eggs and rears its young. Oom-
munity of descent must be supposed of species
having such curious and complex instincts; but
how came these feeble creatures, unable to transport
themselves over seas and continents like the aérial
gossamer, to be so widely distributed, and inhabiting
regions with such different conditions? This can
only be attributed to the enormous antiquity of the
species, and of this antiquity the earliness in which
196 The Naturalist in La Plata.

the instinct manifests itself in the young spiders
is taken as evidence.

A more important matter, the intelligence of
spiders, has not yet received tne attention it deserves.
The question of insect intelligence—naturalists are
agreed that insects do possess intelligence—is an
extremely difficult one ; probably some of our con-
clusions on this matter will have to be reconsidered.
For instance, we regard the Order Hymenoptera as
the most intelligent because most of the social
insects are included in it; but it has not yet been
proved, probably never will be proved, that the
social instincts resulted from intelligence which has
“lapsed.” Whether ants and bees were more intel-
ligent than other insects during the early stages of
their organic societies or not, it will hardly be dis-
puted by any naturalist who has observed insects
for long that many solitary species display more
intelligence in their actions than those that live in
communities.

The nature of the spider’s food and the diffi-
culties in the way of providing for their wants
impose on them a life of solitude: hunger, perpetual
watchfulness, and the sense of danger have given
them a character of mixed ferocity and timidity.
But these very conditions, which have made it
impossible for them to form societies like some insects
and progress to a state of things resembling civiliza-
tion in men, have served to develop the mind that
is in a spider, making of him a very clever barbarian.
The spider’s only weapon of defence—his falees—
are as poor a protection against the assaults of his
insect foes as are teeth and finger-nails in man
facts and Thoughts about Spiders. 197

employed against wolves, bears, and tigers. And
the spider is here even worse off than man, since his
enemies are winged and able to sweep down in-
stantly on him from above; they are also protected
with an invulnerable shield, and are armed with deadly
stings. Like man, also, the spider has a soft, unpro-
tected body, while his muscular strength, compared
with that of the insects he has to contend with, is
almost nil. His position in nature then, with relation
to his enemies, is like that of man; only the spider
has this disadvantage, that he cannot combine with
others for protection. That he does protect himself
and maintains his place in nature is due, not to
special instincts, which are utterly insufficient, but
to the intelligence which supplements them. At
the same time this superior cunning is closely related
with, and probably results indirectly from, the web
he is provided with, and which is almost of the
nature of an artificial aid. Let us take the
imaginary case of a man-like monkey, or of an
arboreal man, born with a cord of great length.
attached to his waist, which could be either dragged
after him or carriedinacoil. After many accidents,
experience would eventually teach him to put it to
some use; practice would make him more and more
skilful in handling it, and, indirectly, it would be
the means of developing his latent mental faculties.
He would begin by using it, as the monkey does
its prehensile tail, to swing himself from branch to
branch, and finally, to escape from an enemy or in-
pursuit of his prey, he would be able by means of
his cord to drop himself with safety from the tallest
trees, or fly down the steepest precipices. He would
198 The Naturalist in La Plata.

coil up his cord to make a bed to lie on, and also
use it for binding branches together when build-
ing himself a refuge. In a close fight, he would
endeavour to entangle an adversary, and at last he
would learn to make a snare with it to capture his
prey. To all these, and to a hundred other uses,
the spider has put his web. And when we see him
spread his beautiful geometric snare, held by lines
fixed to widely separated points, while he sits con-
cealed in his web-lined retreat amongst the leaves
where every touch on the far-reaching structure is
telegraphed to him by the communicating line
faithfully as if a nerve had been touched, we must
admire the wonderful perfection to which he has
attained in the use of his cord. By these means he
is able to conquer creatures too swift and strong for
him, and make them his prey. When we see him
repairing damages, weighting his light fabric in
windy weather with pebbles or sticks, as a fisher
weights his net, and cutting loose a captive whose
great strength threatens the destruction of the web,
then we begin to suspect that he has, above his
special instinct, a reason that guides, modifies, and
in many ways supplements it. It is not, however,
only on these great occasions, when the end is
sought by unusual means, that spiders show their
intelligence ; for even these things might be con-
sidered by some as merely parts of one great com-
plex instinct; but at all times, in all things, the
observer who watches them closely cannot fail to be
convinced that they possess a guiding principle
which is not mere instinct. What the stick or stone
was to primitive man, when he had made the dis-
Facts and Thoughts about Spiders. 199

covery that by holding it in his hand he greatly
increased the force of his blow, the possession of a
web has been to the spider in developing that spark
of intellect which it possesses in common with all
animal organisms,
CHAPTER XV.
THE DEATH-FEIGNING INSTINCT.

Most people are familiar with the phenomenon of
** death-feigning,” commonly seen in coleopterous
insects, and in many spiders. This highly curious
instinct is also possessed by some vertebrates. In
insects it is probably due to temporary paralysis
occasioned by sudden concussion, for when beetles
alight abruptly, though voluntarily, they assume that
appearance of death, which lasts for a few moments.
Some species, indeed, are so highly sensitive that
the slightest touch, or even a sudden menace, will
instantly throw them into this motionless, death-
simulating condition. Curiously enough, the same
causes which produce this trance in slow-moving
species, like those of Scarabeus for example, have
a precisely contrary effect on species endowed with
great activity. Rapacious beetles, when disturbed,
scuttle quickly out of sight, and some water-beetles
spin about the surface, in circles or zigzag lines, so
rapidly as to confuse the eye. Our common long-
legged spiders (Pholcus) when approached draw
their feet together in the middle of the web, and spin
the body round with such velocity as to resemble a
whirligig.

Certain mammals and birds also possess the death-
The Death-fergning Instinct. 201

“simulating instinct, though it is hardly possible to
believe that the action springs from the same im-
mediate cause in vertebrates and ininsects. In the
latter it appears to be a purely physical instinct, the
direct result of an extraneous cause, and resembling
the motions of a plant. In mammals and birds it
is evident that violent emotion, and not the rough
handling experienced, is the final cause of the
swoon.

Passing over venomous snakes, skunks, and a few
other species in which the presence of danger excites
only anger, fear has a powerful, and in some cases
a disabling, effect on animals; and it is this para-
lyzing effect of fear on which the death-feigning
instinct, found only in a few widely-separated species,
has probably been built up by the slow cumulative
process of natural selection. ,

Ihave met with some curious instances of the
paralyzing effect of fear. I was told by some hunters
in an outlying district of the pampas of its effect
on a jaguar they started, and which took refuge in
a dense clump of dry reeds. Though they could see
it, it was impossible to throw the lasso over its head,
and, after vainly trying to dislodge it, they at length
set fire to the reeds. Still it refused to stir, but lay
with head erect, fiercely glaring at them through the
flames. Finally it disappeared from sight in the
black smoke; and when the fire had burnt itself out,
it was found, dead and charred, in the same spot.

On the pampas the gauchos frequently take the
black-necked swan by frightening it. When the
birds are feeding or resting on the grass, two or
three men or boys on horseback go quietly to lee-
202 The Naturalist in La Plata.

ward of the flock, and when opposite to it suddenly
wheel and charge it at full speed, uttering loud
shouts, by which the birds are thrown into such terror
that they are incapable of flying, and are quickly
despatched.

I have also seen gaucho boys catch the Silver-bill
(Lichenops perspicillata) by hurling a stick or stone
at the bird, then rushing at it, when it sits perfectly
still, disabled by fear, and allows itself to be taken.
I myself once succeeded in taking a small bird of
another species in the same way.

Amongst mammals our common fox (Canis azare),
and one of the opossums (Didelphys azarze), are
strangely subject to the death-simulating swoon.
For it does indeed seem strange that animals so
powerful, fierce, and able to inflict such terrible
injury with their teeth should also possess this safe-
guard, apparently more suited to weak inactive
creatures that cannot resist or escape from an enemy
and to animals very low down in the scale of being.
When a fox is caught in a trap or run down by dogs
he fights savagely at first, but by-and-by relaxes
his efforts, drops on the ground, and apparently
yields up the ghost. The deception is so well
carried out, that dogs are constantly taken in by it,
and no one, not previously acquainted with this
clever trickery of nature, but would at once pro-
nounce the creature dead, and worthy of some praise
for having perished in so brave a spirit. Now, when
in this condition of feigning death, I am quite sure
that the animal does not altogether lose conscious-
ness. It is exceedingly difficult to discover any
evidence of life in the opossum; but when one with-
The Death-feigning Instinct. 203

draws a little way from the feigning fox, and watches
him very attentively, a slight opening of the eye
may be detected; and, finally, when left to himself,
he does not recover and start up like an animal that
has been stunned, but slowly and cautiously raises
his head first, and only gets up when his foes are at
a safe distance. Yet I have seen gauchos, who are
very cruel to animals, practise the most barbarous
experiments on a captive fox without being able to
rouse it into exhibiting any sign of life. This has
greatly puzzled me, since, if death-feigning is simply
a cunning habit, the animal could not suffer itself
tobe mutilated without wincing. I can only believe
that the fox, though not insensible, as its behaviour
on being left to itself appears to prove, yet has its
body thrown by extreme terror into that benumbed
condition which simulates death, and during which
it is unable to feel the tortures practised on it.

The swoon sometimes actually takes place before
the animal has been touched, and even when the
exciting cause is at a considerable distance. I was
once riding with a gaucho, when we saw, on the open
level ground before us, a fox, not yet fully grown,
standing still and watching our approach. All at
once it dropped, and when we came up to the spot
it was lying stretched out, with eyes closed, and
apparently dead. Before passing on my companion,
who said it was not the first time he had seen such
a thing, lashed it vigorously with his whip for some
moments, but without producing the slightest
effect.

The death-feigning instinct 1s possessed in a very
marked degree by the spotted tinamou or common
204 The Naturalist in La Plata.

partridge of the pampas (Nothura maculosa). When
captured, after a few violent struggles to escape, it
drops its head, gasps two or three times, and to all
appearances dies. If, when you have seen this, you
release your hold, the eyes open instantly, and, with
startling suddenness and a noise of wings, it is up
and away, and beyond your reach for ever. Pos-
sibly, while your grasp is on the bird it does actually
become insensible, though its recovery from that
condition is almost instantaneous. Birds when
captured do sometimes die in the hand, purely from
terror. The tinamou is excessively timid, and some-
times when birds of this species are chased—for
gaucho boys frequently run them down on horse-
back—and when they find no burrows or thickets
to escape into, they actually drop down dead on the
plain. Probably, when they feign death in their
captor’s hand, they are in reality very near to
death.
CHAPTER XVI.
HUMMING- BIRDS.

Hvumuine-Birps are perhaps the very loveliest things
in nature, and many celebrated writers have exhausted
their descriptive powers in vain efforts to picture
them to the imagination. The temptation was
certainly great, after describing the rich setting of
tropical foliage and flower, to speak at length of
the wonderful gem contained within it; but they
would in this case have been wise to imitate that
modest novel-writer who introduced a blank space
on the page where the description of his matchless
heroine should have appeared. After all that has
been written, the first sight of a living humming-bird,
so unlike in its beauty all other beautiful things,
comes like a revelation to the mind. To give any
true conception of it by means of mere word-painting
is not more impossible than it would be to bottle
up a supply of the “living sunbeams” themselves,
and convey them across the Atlantic to scatter them
in a sparkling shower over the face of England.
Doubtless many who have never seen them in a
state of nature imagine that a tolerably correct idea
of their appearance can be gained from Gould’s
colossal monograph. The pictures there, however,
only represent dead humming-birds. A dead robin
206 The Naturalist in La Plata.

is, for purposes of bird-portraiture, as good as a live
robin ; the same may be said of even many brilliant-
plumaged species less aérial in their habits than
humming-birds. In butterflies the whole beauty is
seldom seen until the insect is dead, or, at any rate,
captive. It was not when Wallace saw the
Ornithoptera croesus flying about, but only when
he held it in his hands, and opened its glorious
wings, that the sight of its beauty overcame him so
powerfully. The special kind of beauty which
makes the first sight of a hamming-bird a revelation
depends on the swift singular motions as much as
on the intense gem-like and metallic brilliancy of
the plumage.

The minute exquisite form, when the bird hovers
on misty wings, probing the flowers with its coral
spear, the fan-like tail expanded, and poising
motionless, exhibits the feathers shot with many
hues; and the next moment vanishes, or all but
vanishes, then reappears at another flower only to
vanish again, and so on successively, showing its
splendours not continuously, but like the intermitted
flashes of the firefly—this forms a picture of airy
grace and loveliness that baffles description. All
this glory disappears when the bird is dead, and
even when it. alights to rest ona bough. Sitting
still, it looks like an exceedingly attenuated king-
fisher, without the pretty plumage of that bird, but
retaining its stiff artificial manner. No artist has
been so bold as to attempt to depict the bird as it
actually appears, when balanced before a flower the
swift motion of the wings obliterates their form,
making them seem like a mist encircling the body ;
flumming-Birds. 207

yet it is precisely this formless cloud on which the
glittering body hangs suspended, which contributes
most to give the humming-bird its wonderful sprite-
like or extra-natural appearance. How strange,
then, to find bird-painters persisting in their efforts
to show the humming-bird flying! When they
draw it stiff and upright on its perch the picture is
honest, if ugly; the more ambitious representation
is a delusion and a mockery.

Coming to the actual colouring—the changeful
tints that glow with such intensity on the scale-
like feathers, it is curious to find that Gould seems
to have thought that all difficulties here had been
successfully overcome. The ‘‘new process” he
spoke so confidently about might no doubt be used
with advantage in reproducing the coarser metallic
reflections on a black plumage, such as we see in
the corvine birds; but the glittering garment of
the humming-bird, like the silvery lace woven by
the Epeira, gemmed with dew and touched with
rainbow-coloured light, has never been and never
can be imitated by art.

On this subject one of the latest observers of
humming-birds, Mr. Everard im Thurn, in his work
on British Guiana, has the following passage :—
‘Hardly more than one point of colour is in
reality ever visible in any one humming-bird at one
and the same time, for each point only shows its
peculiar and glittering colour when the light falls
upon it from a particular direction. A true repre-
sentation of one of these birds would show it in
somewhat sombre colours, except just at the one
point which, when the bird is in the position chosen

P
208 The Naturalist in La Plata.

for representation, meets the light at the requisite
angle, and that point alone should be shown in full
brilliance of colour. A flowery shrub is sometimes
seen surrounded by a cloud of humming-birds, all
of one species, and each, of course, in a different
position. If someone would draw such a scene
as that, showing a different detail of colour in each
bird, according to its position, then some idea of
the actual appearance of the bird might be given
to one who had never seen an example.”

It is hardly to be expected that anyone will carry
out the above suggestion, and produce a monograph
with pages ten or fifteen feet wide by eighteen feet
long, each one showing a cloud of humming-birds
of one species flitting about a flowery bush; but
even in such a picture as that would be, the birds,
suspended on unlovely angular projections instead
of ‘“‘hazy semicircles of indistinctness,” and each
with an immovable fleck of brightness on the other-
wise sombre plumage, would be as unlike living
humming-birds as anything in the older mono-
graphs.

Whether the glittering iridescent tints and
singular ornaments for which this family is famous
result from the cumulative process of conscious or
voluntary sexual selection, as Darwin thought,
or are merely the outcome of a superabundant
vitality, as Dr. A. R. Wallace so strongly maintains,
is a question which science has not yet answered
satisfactorily. The tendency to or habit of varying
in the direction of rich colouring and beautiful or
fantastic ornament, might, for all we know to the
contrary, have descended to humming-birds from
Flumming-Birds. 209

some diminutive, curiously-shaped, bright-tinted,
flying reptile of arboreal habits that lived in some
far-off epoch in the world’s history. It is not, at
all events, maintained by anyone that all birds
sprang originally from one reptilian stock; and the
true position of humming-birds in a natural classi-
fication has not yet been settled, for no intermediate
forms exist connecting them with any other group,
To the ordinary mind they appear utterly unlike all
other feathered creatures, and as much entitled to
stand apart as, for instance, the pigeon and ostrich
families. It has been maintained by some writers
that they are anatomically related to the swifts,
although the differences separating the two families
appear so great as almost to stagger belief in this
notion. Now, however, the very latest authority
on this subject, Dr. Schufeldt, has come to the
conclusion that swifts are only greatly modified
Passeres, and that the humming-birds should form
an order by themselves.

Leaving this question, and regarding them simply
with the ornithological eye that does not see far
below the surface of things, when we have sufficiently
admired the unique beauty and marvellous velocity
of humming-birds, there is little more to be said
about them. They are lovely to the eye—in-
describably so ; and it is not strange that Gould
wrote rapturously of the time when he was at length
‘“nermitted to revel in the delight of seeing the
humming-bird in a state of nature.” The feeling,
he wrote, which animated him with regard to these
most wonderful works of creation it was impossible
to describe, and could only be appreciated by those
2IC The Naturalist in La Plata.

who have made natural history a study, and who
** pursue the investigations of her charming mysteries
with ardour and delight.” This we can under-
stand; but to what an astonishing degree the
feeling was carried in him, when, after remarking
that enthusiasm and excitement with regard to most
things in life become lessened and _ eventually
deadened by time in most of us, he was able to add,
“not so, however, I believe, with those who take
up the study of the Family of Humming-birds !”
It can only be supposed that he regarded natural
history principally as a “ science of dead animals—
a necrology,’ and collected humming-birds just as
others collect Roman coins, birds’ eggs, old weapons,
or blue china, their zeal in the pursuit and faith in
its importance increasing with the growth of their
treasures, until they at last come to believe that
though all the enthusiasms and excitements which
give a zest to the lives of other men fade and perish
with time, it is not so with their particular pursuit.

The more rational kind of pleasure experienced
by the ornithologist in studying habits and dis-
position no doubt results in a great measure from
the fact that the actions of the feathered people
have a savour of intelligence in them. Whatever
his theory or conviction about the origin of instincts
may happen to be, or even if he has no convictions
on the subject, it must nevertheless seem plain to
him that intelligence is, after all, in most cases, the
guiding principle of life, supplementing and modify-
ing habits to bring them into closer harmony with
the environment, and enlivening every day with
countless little acts which result from judgment
Flumming-Birds. 211

and experience, and form no part of the inherited
complex instincts. The longer he observes any
one species or individual, the more does he find in
it to reward his attention; this is not the case,
however, with humming-birds, which possess the
avian body but do not rank mentally with birds.
The pleasure one takes in their beauty soon
evaporates, and is succeeded by no fresh interest,
so monotonous and mechanical are all their actions ;
and we accordingly find that those who are most
tamiliar with them from personal observation have
very little to say about them. A score of humming-
birds, of as many distinct species, are less to the
student of habits than one little brown-plumaged
bird haunting his garden or the rush-bed of a
neighbouring stream; and, doubtless, for a reason
similar to that which makes a lovely human face
uninformed by intellect seem less permanently
attractive than many a homelier countenance. He
grows tired of seeing the feathered fairies per-
petually weaving their aérial ballet-dance about the
flowers, and finds it a relief to watch the little finch
or wren or flycatcher of shy temper and obscure
protective colouring. Perhaps it possesses a
graceful form and melodious voice to give it
wsthetic value, but even without such accessories
he can observe it day by day with increasing interest
and pleasure; and it only adds piquancy to the
feeling to know that the little bird also watches him
with a certain amount of intelligent curiosity and
a great deal of suspicion, and that it studiously
endeavours to conceal from him all the little secrets
of its life which he is bent on discovering.
212 The Naturalist in La Plata.

It has frequently been remarked that humming-
birds are more like insects than birds in disposition.
Some species, on quitting their perch, perform wide
bee-like circles about the tree before shooting away
in a straight line. Their aimless attacks on other
species approaching or passing near them, even on
large birds like hawks and pigeous, is a habit they
have in common with many solitary wood-boring
bees. They also, like dragon-flies and other insects,
attack each other when they come together while
feeding; and in this case their action strangely
resembles that of a couple of butterflies, as they
revolve about each other and rise vertically to a
great height in the air. Again, like insects, they
are undisturbed at the presence of man while
feeding, or even when engaged in building and in-
cubation ; and like various solitary bees, wasps, &c.,
they frequently come close to a person walking or
standing, to hover suspended in the air within a
few inches of his face; and if then struck at they
often, insect-like, return to circle round his head.
All other birds, even those which display the least
versatility, and in districts where man is seldom
seen, show as much caution as curiosity in his
presence; they recognize in the upright unfamiliar
form a living being and a possible enemy. Mr.
Whiteley, who observed humming-birds in Peru, says
it is an amusing sight to watch the Lesbia nuna
attempting to pass to a distant spot in a straight
line during a high wind, which, acting on the long
tail feathers, carries it quite away from the point
aimed at. Insects presenting a large surface to the
wind are always blown from their course in the
fTumming- Birds. ais

same way, for even in the most windy districts they
never appear to learn to guide themselves; and IJ
have often seen a butterfly endeavouring to reach
an isolated flower blown from it a dozen times
before it finally succeeded or gave up the contest.
Birds when shaping their course, unless young and
inexperienced, always make allowance for the force
of the wind. Humming-birds often fly into open
rooms, impelled apparently by a fearless curiosity,
and may then be chased about until they drop ex-
hausted or are beaten down and caught, and, as
Gould says, “if then taken into the hand, they
almost immediately feed on any sweet, or pump up
any liquid that may be offered to them, without
betraying either fear or resentment at the previous
treatment.” Wasps and bees taken in the same
way cndeavour to sting their captor, as most people
know from experience, nor do they cease struggling
violently to free themselves; but the dragon-fly is
like the humming-bird, and is no sooner caught
after much ill-treatment, than it will greedily devour
as many flies and mosquitoes as one likes to offer
it. Only in beings very low in the scale of nature
do we see the instinct of self-preservation in this
extremely simple condition, unmixed with reason or
feeling, and so transient in its effects. The same
insensibility to danger is seen when humming-birds
are captured and confined in a room, and when,
before a day is over, they will flutter about their
captor’s face and even take nectar from his lips.
Some observers have thought that humming-
birds come nearest to humble-bees in their actions.
I do not think so. Mr. Bates writes: “They do
214 The Naturalist in La Plata.

not proceed in that methodical manner which bees
follow, taking the flowers seriatim, but skip about
from one part of a tree to another in the most
capricious manner.” Ihave observed humble-bees
a great deal, and feel convinced that they are
among the most highly intelligent of the social
hymenoptera. Humming-birds, to my mind, have
a much closer resemblance to the solitary wood-
boring bees and to dragon-flies. It must also be
borne in mind that insects have very little time in
which to acquire experience, and that a large
portion of their life, in the imago state, is taken up
with the complex business of reproduction.

The Trochilide, although confined to one con-
tinent, promise to exceed all other families—even
the cosmopolitan finches and warblers—in number
of species. At present over five hundred are
known, or as many as all the species of birds in
Europe together; and good reasons exist for be-
lieving that very many more—not less perhaps
than one or two hundred species—yet remain to be
discovered. The most prolific region, and where
humming-birds are most highly developed, is known
to be West Brazil and the eastern slopes of the
Bolivian and Peruvian Andes. This is precisely
the least known portion of South America; the
few naturalists and collectors who have reached it
have returned laden with spoil, to tell us of a
region surpassing all others in the superabundance
and beauty of its bird life. Nothing, however,
which can be said concerning these vast unexplored
areas of tropical mountain and forest so forcibly
impresses us with the idea of the unknown riches
Flumming-Lirds. 215

contained in them as the story of the Loddigesia
mirabilis. This is perhaps the most wonderful
humming-bird known, and no one who had not
previously seen it figured could possibly form an
idea of what it is like from a mere description. An
outline sketch of it would probably be taken by
most people as a fantastic design representing a

 

Loddigesia Mirabilis,

bird-form in combination with leaves, in size and
shape resembling poplar leaves, but on leaf-stalks
of an impossible length, curving and crossing each
other so as to form geometrical figures unlike
anything in nature. Yet this bird (a single speci-
men) was obtained in Peru half a century ago, and
for upwards of twenty years after its discovery
216 The Naturalist in La Plata.

Gould tried to obtain others, offering as much as
fifty pounds for one; but no second specimen ever
gladdened his eyes, nor was anything more heard
of it until Stolamann refound it in the year 1880.
The addition of many new species to the long
list would, however, be a matter of small interest,
unless fresh facts concerning their habits and
structure were at the same time brought to light;
but we can scarcely expect that the as yet un-
known species will supply any link connecting the
Trochilide with other existing families of birds.
The eventual conclusion will perhaps be that this
family has come down independently from an
exceedingly remote past, and with scarcely any
modification. While within certain very narrow
limits humming-birds vary more than other families,
outside of these limits they appear relatively
stationary; and, conversely, other birds exhibit
least variability in the one direction in which
humming-birds vary excessively. On account of a
trivial difference in habit they have sometimes been
separated in two sub-families: the Phaéthornithine,
found in shady tropical forests; and the Trochiline,
comprising humming-birds which inhabit open sunny
places—and to this division they mostly belong. In
both of these purely arbitrary groups, however, the
aérial habits and manner of feeding poised in the
air are identical, although the birds living in
shady forests, where flowers are scarce, obtain
their food principally from the under surfaces of
leaves. In their procreant habits the uniformity is
also very great. In all cases the nest is small, deep,
cup-shaped, or conical, composed of soft felted mate-
Humming-Birds, 217

rials, and lined inside with vegetable down. The
eggs are white, and never exceed two in number.
Broadly speaking, they resemble each other as
closely in habits as in structure; the greatest
differences in habit in the most widely separated
genera being no greater than may be found in two
wrens or sparrows of the same genus.

This persistence of character in humming-birds,
both as regards structure and habit, seems the
more remarkable when we consider their very wide
distribution over a continent so varied in its con-
ditions, and where they range from the lowest
levels to the limit of perpetual snow on the Andes,
and from the tropics to the wintry Magellanic
district ; also that a majority of genera inhabit
very circumscribed areas—these facts, as Dr.
Wallace remarks, clearly pointing to a very high
antiquity.

It is perhaps a law of nature that when a species
(or group) fits itself to a place not previously
occupied, and in which it is subject to no opposition
from beings of its own class, or where it attains
so great a perfection as to be able easily to over-
come all opposition, the character eventually loses
its original plasticity, or tendency to vary, since
improvement in such a case would be superfluous,
and becomes, so to speak, crystallized in that form
which continues thereafter unaltered. It is, at any
rate, clear that while all other birds rub together
in the struggle for existence, the humming-bird,
owing to its aérial life and peculiar manner of
seeking its food, is absolutely untouched by this
kind of warfare, and is accordingly as far removed
218 The Naturalist in La Plata.

from all competition with other birds as the solitary
savage is removed from the struggle of life affect-
ing and modifying men in crowded communities.
The lower kind of competition affecting humming-
birds, that with insects and, within the family, of
species with species, has probably only served to
intensify their unique characteristics, and, perhaps,
to lower their intelligence.

Not only are they removed from that indirect
struggle for existence which acts so powerfully on
other families, but they are also, by their habits
and the unequalled velocity of their flight, placed
out of reach of that direct war waged on all other
small birds by the rapacious kinds—birds, mammals,
and reptiles. One result of this immunity is that
humming-birds are excessively numerous, albeit such
slow breeders; for, as we have seen, they only lay
two eggs, and not only so, but the second egg is
often dropped so long after incubation has begun
in the first that only one is really hatched. Yet
Belt expressed the opinion that in Nicaragua, where
he observed humming-birds, they out-numbered all
the other birds together. Considering how abun-
dant birds of all kinds are in that district, and that
most of them have a protective colouring and lay
several eggs, it would be impossible to accept such
a statement unless we believed that humming-birds
have, practically, no enemies.

Another result of their immunity from persecu-
tion is the splendid colouring and strange and
beautiful feather ornaments distinguishing them
above all other birds; and excessive variation in
this direction is due, it seems to me, to the very.
FTumming-Burds. 219

causes which serve to check variation in all other
directions. In their plumage, as Martin long ago
wrote, nature has strained at every variety of effect
and revelled in an infinitude of modifications. How
wonderful their garb is, with colours so varied, so
intense, yet seemingly so evanescent !—the glitter-
ing mantle of powdered gold; the emerald green
that changes to velvet black; ruby reds and
luminous scarlets ; dull bronze that brightens and
burns like polished brass, and pale neutral tints
that kindle to rose and lilac-coloured flame. And
to the glory of prismatic colouring are added feather
decorations, such as the racket-plumes and downy
muffs of Spathura, the crest and frills of Lophornis,
the sapphire gorget burning on the snow-white
breast of Oreotrochilus, the fiery tail of Cometes,
and, amongst grotesque forms, the long pointed
crest-feathers, representing horns, and flowing
white beard adorning the piebald goat-like face of
Oxypogon.

Excessive variation in this direction is checked
in nearly all other birds by the need of a protective
colouring, few kinds so greatly excelling in strength
and activity as to be able to maintain their exis-
tence without it. Bright feathers constitute a
double danger, for not only do they render their
possessor conspicuous, but, just as the butterfly
chooses the gayest flower, so do hawks deliberately
single out from many obscure birds the one with
brilliant plumage; but the rapacious kinds do not
waste their energies in the vain pursuit of humming-
birds. These are in the position of neutrals, free
to range at will amidst the combatants, insulting
220 The Naturalist in La Plata.

all alike, and flaunting their splendid colours with
impunity. They are nature’s favourites, endowed
with faculties bordering on the miraculous, and all
other kinds, gentle or fierce, ask only to be left
alone by them.
CHAPTER XVII.

THE ORESTED SCREAMER,
(Chauna chavarria.)

Amonest the feathered notables from all parts of
the world found gathered at the Zoological Gardens
in London is the Crested Screamer from South
America. It ig in many respects a very singular
species, and its large size, great strength, and
majestic demeanour, with the surprising docility and
intelligence it displays when domesticated, give it a
character amongst birds somewhat like that of the
elephant amongst mammals. Briefly and roughly
to describe it: in size it is like a swan, in shape
like a lapwing, only with a powerful curved gallina-
ceous beak. It is adorned with a long pointed
crest and a black neck-ring, the plumage being
otherwise of a pale slaty blue, while the legs and
the naked skin about the eyes are bright red. On
each wing, in both sexes, there are two formidable
spurs; the first one, on the second joint, is an inch
and a half long, nearly straight, triangular, and
exceedingly sharp; the second spur, on the last
joint, being smaller, broad, and curved, and roughly
resembling in shape and size a lion’s claw. There
is another striking peculiarity. The skin is emphy-
222 The Naturalist in La Plata.

sematous—that is, bloated and yielding to pressure.
It crackles when touched, and the surface, when
the feathers are removed, presents a swollen bubbly
appearance; for under the skin there is a layer of
air-bubbles extending over the whole body and even
down the legs under the horny tesselated skin to
the toes, the legs thus having a somewhat massive
appearance.

And now just a few words about the position
of the screamer in systematic zoology. It is placed
in the Family Palamedeidz, which contains only
three species, but about the Order it belongs to
there is much disagreement. It was formerly
classed with the rails, and in popular books of
Natural History still keeps its place with them.
** Now the rail-tribe,”’ says Professor Parker, speak-
ing on this very matter, “ has for a long time been
burdened (on paper) with a very false army list.
Everything alive that has had the misfortune to be
possessed of large unwieldy feet has been added to
this feeble-minded cowardly group, until it has
become a mixed multitude with discordant voices
and with manners and customs having no consonance
or relation.”” He takes the screamer from the rail-
tribe and classes it with the geese (as also does
Professor Huxley), and concludes his study with
these words :—‘‘ Amongst living birds there is not
one possessing characters of higher interest, none
that I am acquainted with come nearer, in some
important points, to the lizard; and there are parts
of the organization which make it very probable
that it is one of the nearest living relations of the
marvellous Archwopteryx ’—an intermediate form
The Crested Screancr. 223

between birds and reptiles belonging to the Upper
Jurassic period.

The screamer’s right to dwell with the geese has
not been left unchallenged. The late Professor
Garrod finds that ‘ from considerations of pterylosis,
visceral anatomy, myology, and osteology the
screamer cannot be placed along with the Anserine
birds.’’? He finds that in some points it resembles
the ostrich and rhea, and concludes: ‘‘It seems
therefore to me that, summing these results, the
screamer must have sprung from the primary avian
stock as an independent offshoot at much the same
time as did most of the other important families.”
This time, he further tells us, was when there
occurred a general break-up of the ancient terres-
trial bird-type, when the acquisition of wings
brought many intruders into domains already
occupied, calling forth a new struggle for exist-
ence, and bringing out many special qualities by
means of natural selection.

With this archeological question I have little to
do, and only quote the above great authorities to
show that the screamer appears to be nearly the
last descendant of an exceedingly ancient family,
with little or no relationship to other existing
families, and that its pedigree has been hopelessly
lost in the night of an incalculable antiquity. I have
only to speak of the bird as a part of the visible
world and as it appears to the non-scientific lover
of nature; for, curiously enough, while anatomists
have been laboriously seeking for the screamer’s
affinities in that ‘ biological field which is as wide
as the earth and deep as the sea,” travellers and

Q
224 The Naturalist in La Plata.

ornithologists have told us almost nothing about
its strange character and habits.

Though dressed with Quaker-like sobriety, and
without the elegance of form distinguishing the
swan or peacock, this bird yet appeals to the esthetic
feelings in man more than any species I am
acquainted with. Voice is one of its strong points,
as one might readily infer from the name: never-

 

Urested Screamer.

theless the name is not an appropriate one, for
though the bird certainly does scream, and that
louder than the peacock, its scream is only a power-
ful note of alarm uttered occasionally, while the
notes uttered at intervals in the night, or in the
day-time, when it soars upwards like the lark of
some far-off imaginary epoch in the world’s history
when all things, larks included, were on a gigantic
scale, are, properly speaking, singing notes and in
The Crested Screamer. 225

quality utterly unlike screams. Sometimes when
walking across Regent’s Park I hear the resound-
ing cries of the bird confined there attempting to
sing; above the concert of cranes, the screams of
eagles and macaws, the howling of dogs and wolves
and the muffled roar of lions, one can hear it all over
the park. But those loud notes only sadden me.
Exile and captivity have taken all joyousness from
the noble singer, and a moist climate has made him
hoarse ; the long clear strains are no more, and he
hurries through his series of confused shrieks as
quickly as possible,as if ashamed of the performance.
A lark singing high up in a sunny sky and a lark
singing in a small cage hanging against a shady wall
in a London street produce very different effects; and
the spluttering medley of shrill and harsh sounds
from the street singer scarcely seems to proceed
from the same kind of bird as that matchless melody
filling the blue heavens. There is even a greater
difference in the notes of the crested screamer when
heard in Regent’s Park and when heard on the
pampas, where the bird soars upwards until its
bulky body disappears from sight, and from that vast
elevation pours down a perpetual rain of jubilant
sound.

Screamer being a misnomer, I prefer to call the
bird by its vernacular name of chajd, or chakar,a more
convenient spelling.

With the chakar the sexes are faithful, even in
very large flocks the birds all being ranged in
couples. When one bird begins to sing its partner
immediately joins, but with notes entirely different
in quality. Both birds have some short deep notes,
226 The Naturalist in La Plata.

the other notes of the female being long powerful
notes with a trill in them; but over them sounds
the clear piercing voice of the male, ringing forth
at the close with great strength and purity. The
song produces the effect of harmony, but, comparing
it with human singing, it is less like a duo than a
terzetto composed of bass, contralto, and soprano. -

At certain times, in districts favourable to them,
the chakars often assemble in immense flocks,
thousands of individuals being sometimes seen con-
gregated together, and in these gatherings the birds
frequently all sing in concert. They invariably—
though without rising—sing at intervals during the
night, “counting the hours,” as the gauchos say ;
the first song being at about nine o’clock, the
second at midnight, and the third just before dawn,
but the hours vary in different districts.

I was once travelling with a party of gauchos
when, about midnight, it being intensely dark, a
couple of chakars broke out singing right ahead of
us, thus letting us know that we were approaching
a watercourse, where we intended refreshing our
horses. We found it nearly dry, and when we
rode down to the rill of water meandering over the
broad dry bed of the river, a flock of about a thou-
sand chakars set up a perfect roar of alarm notes,
all screaming together, with intervals of silence
after; then they rose up with a mighty rush of
wings. They settled down again a few hundred
yards off, and all together burst forth in one of
their grand midnight songs, making the plains echo
for miles around.

There is something strangely impressive in these
The Crested Screamer. 227

spontaneous outbursts of a melody so powerful from
one of these large flocks, and though accustomed
to hear these birds from childhood, I have often
been astonished at some new effect produced by a
large multitude singing under certain conditions.
Travelling alone one summer day, I came at noon
to a lake on the pampas called Kakel—a sheet
of water narrow enough for one to see across.
Chakars in countless numbers were gathered along
its shores, but they were all ranged in well-defined
flocks, averaging about five hundred birds in each
flock. These flocks seemed to extend all round
the lake, and had probably been driven by the
drought from all the plains around to this spot.
Presently one flock near me began singing, and
continued their powerful chant for three or four
minutes; when they ceased the next flock took up
the strains, and after it the next, and so on until
the notes of the flocks on the opposite shore came
floating strong and clear across the water—then
passed away, growing fainter and fainter, until
once more the sound approached me travelling
round to my side again. The effect was very
curious, and I was astonished at the orderly way
with which each flock waited its turn to sing,
instead of a general outburst taking place after the
first flock had given the signal. On another occa-
sion I was still more impressed, for here the largest
number of birds I have ever found congregated at
one place all sung together. This was on the
southern pampas, at a place called Gualicho, where
I had ridden for an hour before sunset over a
marshy plain where there was still much standing
228 The Naturalist in La Plata.

water in the rushy pools, though it was at the
height of the dry season. This whole plain was
covered with an endless flock of chakars, not in
close order, but-scattered about in pairs and small
groups. In this desolate spot I found a small
rancho inhabited by a gaucho and his family, and I
spent the night with them. The birds were all
about the house, apparently as tame as the domestic
fowls, and when I went out to look for a spot for
my horse to feed on, they would not fly away from
me, but merely moved a few steps out of my path
About nine o’clock we were eating supper in the
rancho when suddenly the entire multitude of birds
covering the marsh for miles around burst forth
into a tremendous evening song. It is impossible
to describe the effect of this mighty rush of sound ;
but let the reader try to imagine half-a-million
voices, each far more powerful than that one which
makes itself heard all over Regent’s Park, bursting
forth on the silent atmosphere of that dark lonely
plain. One peculiarity was that in this mighty
noise, which sounded louder than the sea thunder-
ing on a rocky coast, I seemed to be able to dis-
tinguish hundreds, even thousands, of individual
voices. Forgetting my supper, I sat motionless
and overcome with astonishment, while the air, and
even the frail rancho, seemed to be trembling in
that tempest of sound. When it ceased my host
remarked with a smile, ‘‘ We are accustomed to
this, setior—every evening we have this concert.”
It was a concert well worth riding a hundred miles
to hear. But the ckakar country is just now ina
trausitional state, and the precise conditions which
The Crested Screamer. 229

made it possible for birds so large in size to form
such immense congregations are rapidly passing
away. In desert places, the bird subsists chiefly
on leaves and seeds of aquatic plants; but when
the vast level area of the pampas was settled by
man, the ancient stiff grass-vegetation gave place
to the soft clovers and grasses of Hurope, and to
this new food the birds took very kindly. Other
circumstances also favoured their increase. They
were never persecuted, for the natives do not eat
them, though they are really very good—-the flesh
being something like wild goose in flavour. A
higher civilization is changing all this: the country
is becoming rapidly overrun with emigrants, espe-
cially by Italians, the pitiless enemies of all bird-
life,

The chakars, like the skylark, love to soar
upwards when singing, and at such times when
they have risen till their dark bulky bodies appear
like floating specks on the blue sky, or until they
disappear from sight altogether, the notes become
wonderfully etherealized by distance to a soft
silvery sound, and it is then very delightful to
listen to them.

It seems strange that so ponderous a fowl with
only six feet’and a half spread of wings should
possess a power of soaring equal to that of vultures
and eagles. Even the vulture with its marvellous
wing power soars chiefly from necessity, and when
its crop is full finds no pleasure in “scaling the
heavens by invisible stairs.” The chakar leaves its
grass-plot after feeding and soars purely for re-
creation, taking so much pleasure in its aérial
230 The Naturalist in La Plata.

exercises that in bright warm weather, in winter
and spring, it spends a great part of the day in the
upper regions of the air. On the earth its air is
grave and its motions measured and majestic, and
it rises with immense labour, the wings producing
a sound like a high wind. But as the bird mounts
higher, sweeping round as it ascends, just as
vultures and eagles do, it gradually appears to
become more buoyant, describing each succeeding
circle with increasing grace. I can only account
for this magnificent flight, beginning so laboriously,
by supposing that the bubble space under the skin
becomes inflated with an air lighter than atmo-
spheric air, enabling a body so heavy with wings
disproportionately short to float with such ease and
evident enjoyment at the vast heights to which the
bird ascends. The heavenward flight of a large
bird is always a magnificent spectacle ; that of the
chakar is peculiarly fascinating on account of the
resounding notes it sings while soaring, and in
which the bird seems to exult in its sublime power
and freedom.

I was once very much surprised at the behaviour
of a couple of chakars during a thunderstorm. On
a still sultry day in summer I was standing watch-
ing masses of black cloud coming rapidly over the
sky, while a hundred yards from me stood the two
birds also apparently watching the approaching
storm with interest. Presently the edge of the
cloud touched the sun, and a twilight gloom fell on
the earth. The very moment the sun disappeared -
the birds rose up and soon began singing their long-
resounding notes, though it was loudly thundering
The Crested Screamer. 231

at the time, while vivid flashes of lightning lit the
black cloud overhead at short intervals. I watched
their flight and listened to their notes, till suddenly
as they made a wide sweep upwards they dis-
appeared in the cloud, and at the same moment
their voices became muffled, and seemed to come
from an immense distance. The cloud continued
emitting sharp flashes of lightning, but the birds
never reappeared, and after six or seven minutes
once more their notes sounded loud and clear above
the muttering thunder. I suppose they had passed
through the cloud into the clear atmosphere above
it, but I was extremely surprised at their fearless-
ness; for as a rule when soaring birds see a storm
coming they get out of its way, flying before it or
stooping to the earth to seek shelter of some kind,
for most living things appear to have a wholesome
dread of thunder and lightning.

When taken young the chakar becomes very
tame and attached to man, showing no inclination
to go back to a wildlife. There was one kept at an
estancia called Mangrullos, on the western frontier
of Buenos Ayres, and the people of the house gave
me avery curious account of it. The bird was a
male, and had been reared by a soldier’s wife at a
frontier outpost called La Esperanza, about twenty-
five miles from Manerullos. Four years before I
saw the bird the Indians had invaded the frontier,
destroying the Esperanza settlement and all the
estancias for some leagues around. For some
weeks after the invasion the chakar wandered about
the country, visiting all the ruined estancias, appa-
rently in quest of human beings, and on arriving
232 The Naturalist in La Plata.

at Mangrullos, which had not been burnt and was
still inhabited, it settled down at once and never
afterwards showed any disposition to go away. It
was extremely tame, associating by day with the
poultry, and going to roost with them at night on
a high perch, probably for the sake of companion-
ship, for in a wild state the bird roosts on the
ground. It was friendly towards all the members
of the household except one, a peon, and against
this person from the first the bird always dis-
played the greatest antipathy, threatening him
with its wings, puffing itself out, and hissing like
an angry goose. The man had a swarthy, beardless
face, and it was conjectured that the chakar asso-
ciated him in its mind with the savages who had
destroyed its early home.

Close to the house there was a lagoon, never
dry, which was frequently visited by flocks of wild
chakars. Whenever a flock appeared the tame bird
would go out to join them ; and though the chakars
are mild-tempered birds and very rarely quarrel,
albeit so well provided with formidable weapons,
they invariably attacked the visitor with great fury,
chasing him back to the house, and not ceasing
their persecutions till the poultry-yard was reached.
They appeared to regard this tame bird that dwelt
with man as a kind of renegade, and hated him
accordingly.

Before he had been long at the estancia it began
to be noticed that he followed the broods of young
chickens about very assiduously, apparently taking
great interest in their welfare, and even trying to
entice them to follow him. A few newly-hatched
The Crested Screamer. 233

chickens were at length offered to him as an experi-
ment, and he immediately took charge of them with
every token of satisfaction, conducting them about
in search of food and imitating all the actions of a
hen. Finding him so good a nurse, large broods
were given to him, and the more the foster-chickeus
were the better he seemed pleased. It was very
curious to see this big bird with thirty or forty
little animated balls of yellow cotton following him
about, wnile he moved majestically along, setting
down his feet with the greatest care not to tread on
them, and swelling himself up with jealous anger at
the approach of a cat or dog.

The intelligence, docility, and attachment to man
displayed by the chakar in a domestic state, with
perhaps other latent aptitudes only waiting to be
developed by artificial selection, seem to make this
species one peculiarly suited for man’s protection,
without which it must inevitably perish. It is
sad to reflect that all our domestic animals have
descended to us from those ancient times which
we are accustomed to regard as dark or bar-
barous, while the effect of our modern so-called
humane civilization has been purely destructive to
animal life. Not one type do we rescue from the
carnage going on at an ever-increasing rate over all
the globe. To Australia and America, North and
South, we look in vain for new domestic species,
while even from Africa, with its numerous fine
maimmalian forms, and where England has been
the conquering colonizing power for nearly a cen-
tury, we take nothing. Even the sterling qualities of
the elephant, the unique beauty of the zebra, appeal
234 The Naturalist in La Plata.

to us in vain. We are only teaching the tribes of
that vast continent to exterminate a hundred: noble
species they would not tame. With grief and
shame, even with dismay, we. call to mind that
our country is now a stupendous manufactory of
destructive engines, which we are rapidly placing
in the hands of all the savage and semi-savage
peoples of the earth, thus ensuring the speedy
destruction of all the finest types in the animal
kingdom.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE WOODHEWER FAMILY.
(Dendrocolaptide.)

TE South American Tree-creepers, or Woodhewers,
as they are sometimes called, although confined
exclusively to one continent, their range extending
from Southern Mexico to the Magellanic islands,
form one of the largest families of the order
Passeres; no fewer than about two hundred and
ninety species (referable to about forty-six genera)
having been already described. As they are mostly
small, inconspicuous, thicket-frequenting birds, shy
and fond of concealment to excess, it is only rea-
sonable to suppose that our list of this family is
more incomplete than of any other family of birds
known. Thus, inthe southern Plata and north Pata-
gonian districts, supposed to be exhausted, where my
observations have been made, and where, owing to
the open nature of the country, birds are more easily
remarked than in the forests and marshes of the tro-
pical region, I have made notes on the habits of five
species, of which I did not preserve specimens, and
which, as far as I know, have never been described
andnamed. Probably long before the whole of South
America has been ‘‘ exhausted,” there will be not
less than four to five hundred Dendrocolaptine
236 The Naturalist in La Plata.

species known. And yet with the exception of
that dry husk of knowledge, concerning size, form
and colouration, which classifiers and cataloguers ob-
tain from specimens, very little indeed—scarcely any-
thing, in fact—is known about the Tree-creepers; and
it would not be too much to say that there are many
comparatively obscure and uninteresting species in
Europe, any one of which has a larger literature
than the entire Tree-creeper family. No separate
work about these birds has seen the light, even in
these days of monographs; but the reason of this
comparative neglect is not far to seek. In the
absence of any knowledge, except of the most frag-
mentary kind, of the life-habits of exotic species, the
monograph-makers of the Old World naturally take
up only the mostimportant groups—i.e. the groups
which most readily attract the traveller’s eye with
their gay conspicuous colouring, and which have
acquired a wide celebrity. We thus have a suc-
cession of splendid and expensive works dealing
separately with such groups as woodpeckers, trogons,
humming-birds, tanagers, king-fishers, and birds of
paradise; for with these, even if there be nothing
to record beyond the usual dreary details and
technicalities concerning geographical distribution,
variations in size and markings of different species,
&c., the little interest of the letter-press is com-
pensated for in the accompanying plates, which are
now produced on a scale of magnitude, and with so
great a degree of perfection, as regards brilliant
colouring, spirited attitudes and general fidelity to
nature, that leaves little further improvement in this
direction to be looked for. The Tree-creepers, being
The Woodhewer Family. aa

without the inferior charm of bright colour, offer no
attraction to the bird-painter, whose share in the
work of the pictorial monograph is, of course, all-
important. Yet even the very slight knowledge we
possess of this family is enough to show that in
many respects it is one richly endowed, possessing
characters of greater interest to the student of the
instincts and mental faculties of birds, than any of
the gaily-tinted families I have mentioned.

There is, in the Dendrocolaptide, a splendid
harvest for future observers of the habits of South
American birds: some faint idea of its richness may
perhaps be gathered from the small collection of the
most salient facts known to us about them I have
brought together and put in order in this place.
And I am here departing a little from the plan
usually observed in this book, which is chiefly
occupied with matters of personal knowledge, sea-
soned with a little speculation; but in this case I
have thought it best to supplement my own observa-
tions with those of others who have collected and
observed birds in South America,* so as to give as
comprehensive a survey of the family as I could.

It is strange to find a Passerine family, numerous
as the Tree-creepers, uniformly of one colour, or
nearly so; for, with few exceptions, these birds have
a brown plumage, without a particle of bright
colour. But although they possess no brilliant or
metallic tints, in some species, as we shall see, there
are tints approaching to brightness. Notwithstand-

* Azara; D’Orbigny; Darwin; Bridges; Frazer; Leotaud ;
Gaumer ; Wallace ; Bates; Cunningham ; Stolzmann ; Jelski;
Durnford; Gibson ; Burrows ; Doring ; White, &c.
238 The Naturalist in La Plata.

ing this family likeness in colour, any person, not
an ornithologist, looking at a collection of speci-
mens comprising many genera, would hear with
surprise and almost incredulity that they all belonged
to one family, so great is the diversity exhibited in
their structure. In size they vary from species
smaller than the golden-crested wren to others
larger than the woodcock; but the differences in
size are as nothing compared with those shown in
the form of the beak. Between the minute, straight,
conical, tit-lke beaks of the Laptasthenura—a tit
in appearance and habits—and the extravagantly
long, sword-shaped bill of Nasica, or the excessively
attenuated, sickle-shaped organ in Xiphorynchus,
the divergence is amazing, compared with what is
found in other families; while between these two
extremes there is a heterogeneous assemblage of
birds with beaks like creepers, nuthatches, finches,
tyrant-birds, woodpeckers, crows, and even curlews
and ibises. In legs, feet and tails, there are corrc-
sponding differences. There are tails of all lengths
and all forms; soft and stiff, square, acuminated,
broad and fan-like, narrow and _ spine-like, and
many as in the woodpeckers, and used as in that
bird to support the body in climbing. An extremely
curious modification is found in Sittosoma : the tail-
feathers in this genus are long and graduated, and
the shafts, projecting beyond the webs at the ends,
curve downwards and form stiff hooks. Concern-
ing the habits of these birds, it has only been
reported that they climb on the trunks of trees:
probably they are able to run vertically up or down
with equal facility, and even to suspend themselves
The Woodhewer Family. 239
by their feather-hooks when engaged in dislodging

insects. Another curious variation is found in
Sylviothorhynchus, a small wren-like bird and the

 

Some Woodhewers’ beaks.

only member known of the genus, with a tail
resembling that of the lyre-bird, the extravagantly

long feathers being so narrow as to appear almost
R
240 The Naturalist in La Plata.

like shafts destitute of webs. This tail appears to
be purely ornamental.

This extreme variety in structure indicates a
corresponding diversity in habits; and, assuming it
to be a true doctrine that habits vary first and
structure afterwards, anyone might infer from a
study of their forms alone that these birds possess
a singular plasticity, or tendency to vary, in their
habits—or, in other words, that they are exception-
ally intelligent ; and that such a conclusion would
be right I believe a study of their habits will serve
to show.

The same species is often found to differ in its
manner of life in different localities. Some species
of Xenops and Magarornis, like woodpeckers, climb
vertically on tree-trunks in search of insect prey,
but also, like tits, explore the smaller twigs and
foliage at the extremity of the branches; so that the
whole tree, from its root to its topmost foliage, is
hunted over by them. The Sclerurus, although an
inhabitant of the darkest forest, and provided with
sharply-curved claws, never seeks its food on trees,
but exclusively on the ground, among the decaying
fallen leaves ; but, strangely enough, when alarmed
it flies to the trunk of the nearest tree, to which it
clings in a vertical position, and, remaining silent
and motionless, escapes observation by means of
its dark protective colour. The Drymornis, a large
bird, with feet and tail like a woodpecker, climbs on
tree-trunks to seek its food; but also possesses
the widely-different habit of resorting to the open
plain, especially after a shower, to feed on larvez and
earthworms, extracting them from a depth of three
The Woodhewer Family. 241

or four inches beneath the surface with its immense
curved probing beak.

Again, when we consider a large number of
species of different groups, we find that there is
not with the Tree-creepers, as with most families,
any special habit or manner of life linking them
together; but that, on the contrary, different
genera, and, very frequently, different species
belonging to one genus, possess habits peculiarly
their own. In other families, even where the
divergence is greatest, what may be taken as the
original or ancestral habit is seldom or never quite
obsolete in any of the members. This we see, for
instance, in the woodpeckers, some of which have
acquired the habit of seeking their food exclusively
on the ground in open places, and even of nesting
in the banks of streams. Yet all these wanderers,
even those which have been structurally modified
in accordance with their altered way of life, retain
the primitive habit of clinging vertically to the
trunks of trees, although the habit has lost its
use. With the tyrant birds—a family showing an
extraordinary amount of variation—it is the same;
for the most divergent kinds are frequently seen
reverting to the family habit of perching on an
elevation, from which to make forays after passing
insects, returning after each capture to the same
stand. The thrushes, ranging all over the globe,
afford another striking example. Without speaking
of their nesting habits, their relationship appears in
their love of fruit, in their gait, flight, statuesque
attitudes, and abrupt motions.

With the numerous Dendrocolaptine groups, so
242 The Naturalist in La Plata.

widely separated and apparently unrelated, it would
be difficult indeed to say which of their most
striking habits is the ancestral one. Many of the
smaller species live in trees or bushes, and in their
habits resemble tits, warblers, wrens, and other
kinds that subsist on small caterpillars, spiders, &.,
gleaned from the leaves and smaller twigs. The
Anumbius nests on trees, but feeds exclusively on
the ground in open places; while other ground-
feeders seek their food among dead leaves in dense
gloomy forests. Coryphistera resembles the lark
and pipit in its habits; Cinclodes, the wagtail ;
Geobates a Saxicola; Limnornis lives in reed beds
growing in the water; Henicornis in reed beds
growing out of the water; and many other ground
species exist concealed in the grass on dry plains;
Homorus seeks its food by digging in the loose soil
and dead leaves about the roots of trees; while Geo-
sitta, Furnarius, and Upercerthia obtain a livelihood
chiefly by probing in the soil. It would not be pos-
sible within the present limits to mention in detail
all the different modes of life of those species or
groups which do not possess the tree-creeping
habit ; after them comes a long array of genera in
which this habit is ingrained, and in which the
greatly modified feet and claws are suited to a
climbing existence. As these genera comprise the
largest half of the family, also the largest birds in
it, we might expect to find in the tree-creeping
the parental habit of the Dendrocolaptide, and that
from these tropical forest groups have sprurg the
widely-diverging thicket, ground, marsh, sea-beach,
and rock-frequenting groups. It happens, however,
The Woodhewer Family. 243

that these birds resemble each other only in their
climbing feet; in the form of their beaks they are
as wide apart as are nuthatches, woodpeckers,
crows, and curlews. They also differ markedly in
the manner of seeking their food. Some dig like
woodpeckers in decayed wood; others probe only
in soft rotten wood; while the humming-bird-billed
Xiphorhynchus, with a beak too long and slender
for probing, explores the interior of deep holes in
the trunks to draw out nocturnal insects, spiders,
and centipedes from their concealment. Xiphoco-
laptes uses its sword-like beak as a lever, thrusting
it under and forcing up the loose bark; while
Dendrornis, with its stout corvine beak, tears the
bark off.

In the nesting habits the diversity is greatest.
Some ground species excavate in the earth like
kinefishers, only with greater skill, making cylin-
drical burrows often four to five feet deep, and
terminating in a round chamber. Others build a
massive oven-shaped structure of clay on a branch
or other elevated site. Many of those that creep on
trees nest in holes in the wood. The marsh-
frequenting kinds attach spherical or oval domed
nests to the reeds; and in some cases woven grass
and clay are so ingeniously combined that the
structure, while light as a basket, is perfectly
impervious to the wet and practically indestructible.
The most curious nests, however, are the large stick
structures on trees and bushes, in the building and
repairing of which the birds are im many cases
employed more or less constantly all the year
round. These stick nests vary greatly in form,
244 The Naturalist in La Plata.

size, and in other respects. Some have a spiral
passage-way leading from the entrance to the nest
cavity, and the cavity is in many cases only large
enough to accommodate the bird; but in the
gigantic structure of Homorus gutturalis it is so
large that, if the upper half of the nest or dome
were removed, a condor could comfortably hatch
her eggs and rear her young in it. This nest is
spherical. The allied Homorus lophotis builds a
nest equally large, but with a small cavity for the
eggs inside, and outwardly resembling a gigantic
powder-flask, lying horizontally among the lower
branches of a spreading tree. Pracellodomus sibila-
trix, a bird in size like the English house sparrow,
also makes a huge nest, and places it on the twigs
at the terminal end of a horizontal branch from
twelve to fifteen feet above the ground; but when
finished, the weight of the structure bears down
the branch-end to within one or two feet of the
surface. Mr. Barrows, who describes this nest,
says : ‘When other branches of the same tree are
similarly loaded, and other trees close at hand bear
the same kind of fruit, the result is very picturesque.”
Synallaxis phryganophila makes a stick nest about
a foot in depth, and from the top a tubular passage,
formed of slender twigs interlaced, runs down the
entire length of the nest, like a rain-pipe on the
wall of a house, and then becoming external slopes
upward, ending at a distance of two to three feet
from the nest. Throughout South America there
are several varieties of these fruit-and-stem or
watering-pot shaped nests; they are not, however,
all built by birds of one genus, while in the genus
The Woodhewer Family. 245

Synallaxis many species have no tubular passage-
ways attached to their nests. One species—ery-
throthorax—in Yucatan, makes so large a nest of
sticks, that the natives do not believe that so small
a bird can be the builder. They say that when the
tzapatan begins to sing, all the birds in the forest
repair to it, each one carrying a stick to add to the
structure ; only one, a tyrant-bird, brings two sticks,
one for itself and one for the urubdé or vulture, that
bird being considered too large, heavy, and igno-
rant of architecture to assist personally in the
work.

In the southern part of South America, where
scattered thorn trees grow on a dry soil, these big
nests are most abundant. ‘There are plains,” Mr.
Barrows writes, ‘‘ within two miles of the centre of
this town (Concepcion, Argentine Republic), where
I have stood and counted, from one point within a
radius of twenty rods, over two hundred of these
curious nests, varying in size from that of a small
pumpkin to more than the volume of a barrel.
Often a single tree will contain half a dozen nests
or more; and, not unfrequently, the nests of several
different species are seen crowding each other out
of shape on the same bush or tree.”

It would be a mistake to think that the widely
different nesting habits I have mentioned are found
in different genera. I have just spoken of the big
stick nests, with or without passage-ways, of the
Synallaxes, yet the nest of one member of this
group is simply a small straight tube of woven
grass, the aperture only large enough to admit the
middle finger, and open at both ends, so that the
246 The Naturalist in La Plata.

bird can pass in and out without turning round.
Another species scoops a circular hollow in the soil,
and builds over it a dome of fine woven grass. It
should be mentioned that the nesting habits of only
about fifteen out of the sixty-five species comprised
in this genus are known to us. In the genus
Furnarius the oven-shaped clay structure is known
to be made by three species; a fourth builds a nest
of sticks in a tree; a fifth burrows in the side of a
bank, like a kingfisher.

The explanation of the most striking features
of the Dendrocolaptide, their monotonous brown
plumage, diversity of structure, versatile habits,
and the marvellous development of the nest-making
instinct which they exhibit is to be found, it appears
to me, in the fact that they are the most defenceless
of birds. They are timid, unresisting creatures,
without strength or weapons; their movements are
less quick and vigorous than those of other kinds,
and their flight is exceedingly feeble. The arboreal
species flit at intervals from one tree to another ;
those that frequent thickets refuse to leave their
chosen shelter; while those inhabiting grassy
plains or marshes study concealment, and, when
forced to rise, flutter away just above the surface,
like flying-fish frightened from the water, and,
when they have gone thirty or forty yards, dip into
the grass or reeds again. Their life is thus one of
perpetual danger in a far greater degree than with
other passerine families, such as warblers, tyrants,
finches, thrushes, &. ; while an exclusively insect
diet, laboriously extracted from secret places, and
inability to change their climate, contribute to make
The Woodhewer Family. 247

their existence a hard one. It has been with these
birds as with human beings, bred in “ misfortune’s
school,” and subjected to keen competition. One
of their most striking characteristics is a methodical,
plodding, almost painful diligence of manner while
seeking their food, so that when viewed side by
side with other species, rejoicing in a gayer plumage
and stronger flight, they seem like sober labourers
that never rest among holiday people bent only on
enjoyment. That they are able not only to main-
tain their existence, but to rise to the position of a
dominant family, is due to an intelligence and
adaptiveness exceeding that of other kinds, and
which has been strengthened, and perhaps directly
results from the hard conditions of their life.

How great their adaptiveness and variability
must be when we find that every portion of the
South American continent is occupied by them;
for there is really no climate, and no kind of soil or
vegetation, which does not possess its appropriate
species, modified in colour, form, and habits to suit
the surrounding conditions. In the tropical region,
so rich in bird life of all kinds, in forest, marsh,
and savanna, they are everywhere abundant—food
is plentiful there; but when we go to higher
elevations and cold sterile deserts, where their
companion families of the tropics dwindle away and
disappear, the creepers are still present, for they
are evidently able to exist where other kinds would
starve. On the stony plateaus of the Andes, and
on the most barren spots in Patagonia, where no
other bird is seen, there are small species of Synal-
laxis, which, in their obscure colour and motions
248 The Naturalist in La Plata.

on the ground, resemble mice rather than birds;
indeed, the Quichua name for one of these Synal-
laxes is ukatchtuka, or mouse-bird. How different
is the life habit here from what we see in the
tropical groups—the large birds with immense beaks,
that run vertically on the trunks of the great forest
trees !

At the extreme southern extremity of the South
American continent we find several species of Cin-
clodes, seeking a subsistence like sandpipers on the
beach ; they also fly out to sea, and run about on
the floating kelp, exploring the fronds for the small
marine animals on which they live. In the dreary
forests of Tierra del Fuego another creeper, Oxyurus,
is by far the commonest bird. ‘* Whether high up
or low down, in the most gloomy, wet, and scarcely
penetrable ravines,” says Darwin, “this little bird
is to be met with;’’? and Dr. Cunningham also
relates that in these wintry, savage woods he was
always attended in his walks by parties of these
little creepers, which assembled to follow him out of
curiosity.

To birds placed at so great a disadvantage, by a
feeble flight and other adverse circumstances, in the
race of life bright colours would certainly prove
fatal. It is true that brown is not in itself a pro-
tective colour, and the clear, almost silky browns
and bright chestnut tints in several species are
certainly not protective; but these species are suf-
ficiently protected in other ways, and can afford to
be without a strictly adaptive colour, so long as they
are not conspicuous. Ina majority of cases, how-
ever, the colour is undoubtedly protective, the
The Woodhewer Family. 249

brown hue being of a shade that assimilates very
closely to the surroundings. There are pale
yellowish browns, lined and mottled, in species
living amidst a sere, scanty vegetation; earthy
browns, in those frequenting open sterile or stony
places; while the species that creep on trees in
forests are dark brown in colour, and in many cases
the feathers are mottled in such a manner as to
make them curiously resemble the bark of a tree.
The genera. Lochmias and Sclerurus are the darkest,
the plumage in these birds being nearly or quite
black, washed or tinged with rhubarb yellow. Their
black plumage would render them conspicuous in
the sunshine, but they pass their lives in dense
tropical forests, where the sun at noon sheds only
a gloomy twilight.

If “colour is ever tending to increase and to
appear where it is absent,” as Dr. Wallace believes,
then we ought to find it varying in the direction of
greater brightness in some species in a family so
numerous and variable as the Dendrocolaptide,
however feeble and in need of a protective colour-
ing these birds may be in a majority of cases. And
this in effect we do find. In many of the dark-
plumaged species that live in perpetual shade some
parts are a very bright chestnut; while in a few
that live in such close concealment as to be almost
independent of protective colouring, the lower
plumage has become pure white. A large number
of species have a bright or nearly bright gular spot.
This is most remarkable in Synallaxis phryganophila,
the chin being sulphur-yellow, beneath which is a
spot of velvet-black, and on either side a white
250 The Naturalist in La Plata.

patch, the throat thus having three strongly con-
trasted colours, arranged in four divisions. The
presence of this bright throat spot in so many
species cannot very well be attributed to voluntary
sexual selection, although believers in that theory
are of course at liberty to imagine that when en-
gaged in courtship, the male bird, or rather male
and female both, as both sexes possess the spot,
hold up their heads vertically to exhibit it. Per-
haps it would be safer to look on it ag a mere
casual variation, which, like the exquisitely pencilled
feathers and delicate tints on the concealed sides
and under surfaces of the wings of many species
possessing outwardly an obscure protective colour-
ing, is neither injurious nor beneficial in any way,
either to the birds or to the theory. It is more
than probable, however, that in such small feeble-
winged, persecuted birds, this spot of colour would
prove highly dangerous on any conspicuous part of
.the body. In some of the more vigorous, active
species, we can see a tendency towards a brighter
colouring on large, exposed surfaces. In <Auto-
malus the tail is bright satiny rufous; in Pseudo-
colaptes the entire under surface is rufous of a
peculiar vivid tint, verging on orange or red; in
Magarornis the bosom is black, and beautifully
ornamented with small leaf-shaped spots of a
delicate straw-colour. There are several other
very pretty birds in this homely family; but the
finest of all is Thripodectes flammulatus, the whole
body being tortoise-shell colour, the wings and tail
bright chesnut. The powerful tanager-like beak of
this species seems also to show that it has diverged
The Woodhewer Family. 251

from its timid shade-loving congeners in another
direction by becoming a seed and fruit eater.
Probably the sober and generally protective
colouring of the tree-creepers, even with the vari-
ability and adaptiveness displayed in their habits
superadded, would be insufficient to preserve such
feeble birds in the struggle of life without the
further advantage derived from their wonderful
nests. It has been said of domed nests that they
are a danger rather than a protection, owing to
their large size, which makes it easy for carnivor-
ous species that prey on eggs and young birds to
find them ; while small open nests are usually well
concealed. This may be the case with covered nests
made of soft materials, loosely put together ; but it
cannot be said of the solid structure the tree-creeper
builds, and which, as often as not, the bird erects
in the most conspicuous place it can find, as if,
writes Azara, it desired all the world to admire its
work. The annual destruction of adult birds is very
great—more than double that, I believe, which takes
place in other passerine families. Their eggs and
young are, however, practically safe in their great
elaborate nests or deep burrows, and, as a rule, they
lay more eggs than other kinds, the full complement
being seldom less than five in the species I am
acquainted with, while some lay as many as nine.
Their nests are also made so as to keep out a greater
pest than their carnivorous or egg-devouring
enemies—namely, the parasitical starlings (Molo-
thrus), which are found throughout South America,
and are excessively abundant and destructive to
birds’ nests in some districts. In most cases, in the
252 The Naturalist in La Plata.

big, strong-domed nest or deep burrow, all the eggs
are hatched and all the young reared, the thinning-
out process commencing only after the brood has
been led forth into a world beset with perils. With
other families, on the contrary, the greatest amount
of destruction falls on the eggs or fledglings. I
have frequently kept a dozen or twenty pairs of
different species—warblers, finches, tyrants, star-
lings, &c.—under observation during the breeding
season, and have found that in some cases no young
were reared at all; in other cascs one or two young ;
while, as often as not, the young actually reared
were only parasitical starlings after all.

I have still to speak of the voice of the tree-
creepers, an important point in the study of these
birds; for, though not accounted singers, some
species emit remarkable sounds ; moreover, language
in birds is closely related to the social instinct.
They seem to be rather solitary than gregarious ;
and this seems only natural in birds so timid, weak-
winged, and hard pressed. It would also be natural
to conclude from what has been said concerning
their habits that they are comparatively silent; for,
as a rule, vigorous social birds are loquacious and
loud-voiced, while shy solitary kinds preserve
silence, except in the love season. Nevertheless
the creepers are loquacious and have loud resonant
voices ; this fact, however, does not really contra-
dict a well-known principle, for the birds possess
the social disposition in an eminent degree, only the
social habit is kept down in them by the conditions
of a life which makes solitude necessary. ‘Thus, a
large proportion of species are found to pair for
The Woodhewer Family, 253

life; and the only reasonable explanation of this
habit in birds—one which is not very common in
the mammalia—is that such species possess the
' social temper or feeling, and live in pairs only
because they cannot afford to livein flocks. Strictly
gregarious species pair only for the breeding season.
Tn the creepers the attachment between the birds
thus mated for life is very great, and, as Azara
truly says of Anumbius, so fond of each other’s
society are these birds, that when one incubates the
other sits at the entrance to the nest, and when one
carries food to its young the other accompanies it,
even if it has found nothing to carry. In these
species that live in pairs, when the two birds are
separated they are perpetually calling to each other,
showing how impatient of solitude they are; while
even from the more solitary kind, a high-pitched
call-note is constantly heard in the woods, for these
birds, debarred from associating together, satisfy
their instinct by conversing with one another over
long distances.

The foregoing remarks apply to the Dendrocolap-
tide throughout the temperate countries of South
America—the birds inhabiting extensive grassy
plains and marshes, and districts with a scanty or
scattered tree and bush vegetation. In the forest
areas of the hotter regions it is different ; there the
birds form large gatherings or “‘ wandering bands,”
composed of all the different species found in each
district, associated with birds of other families—
wood-peckers, tyrant-birds, bush shrikes, and many
others. These miscellaneous gatherings are not of
rare occurrence, but out of the breeding season are
254 The Naturalist in La Plata.

formed daily, the birds beginning to assemble at
about nine or ten o’clock in the morning, their
number increasing through the day until it reaches
its maximum between two and four o’clock in the
afternoon, after which it begins to diminish, each
bird going off to its customary shelter or dwelling-
place. Mr. Bates, who first described these wander-
ing bands, says that he could always find the
particular band belonging to a district any day he
wished, for when he failed to meet with it in one
part of the forest he would try other paths, until he
eventually found it. The great Amazonian forests,
he tells us, appear strangely silent and devoid of
bird life, and it is possible to ramble about for
whole days without seeing or hearing birds. But
now and then the surrounding trees and bushes
appear suddenly swarming with them. ‘“ The bust-
ling crowd loses no time, and, always moving in
concert, each bird is occupied on its own account
in searching bark, or leaf, or twig. In a few
moments the host is gone, and the forest path
remains deserted and silentas before.” Stolzmann,
who observed them in Peru, says that the sound
caused by the busy crowd searching through the
foliage, and the falling of dead leaves and twigs,
resembles that produced by a shower of rain. The
Indians of the Amazons, Mr. Bates writes, have a
curious belief to explain these bird armies ; they
say that the Papa-uird, supposed to be a smali grey
bird, fascinates all the others, and leads them on a
weary perpetual dance through the forest. It seems
very wonderful that birds, at other times solitary,
should thus combine daily in large numbers, includ-
The Woothewer Family. 255

ing in their bands scores of widely different species,
and in size ranging from those no larger than a
wren to others as big as a magpie. It is certainly
very advantageous to them. As Belt remarks, they
play into each other’s hands; for while the larger
creepers explore the trunks of big trees, others run
over the branches and cling to the lesser twigs, so
that every tree in their route, from its roots to the
topmost foliage, is thoroughly examined, and every
spider and caterpillar taken, while the winged
insects, driven from their lurking-places, are seized
where they settle, or caught flying by the tyrant
birds.

I have observed the wandering bands only in
Patagonia, where they are on a very small scale
compared with those of the tropical forests. In the
Patagonia thickets the small tit-like creeper, Laptas-
thenura, is the prime mover; and after a consider-
able number of these have gathered, creepers of
other species and genera unite with them, and
finally the band, as it moves through the thickets,
draws to itself other kinds—flycatchers, finches,
&c.—many of the birds running or hopping on the
ground to search for insects in the loose soil or
under dead leaves, while others explore the thorny
bushes. My observations of these small bands lead
me to believe that everywhere in South America
the Dendrocolaptide are the first in combining to
act in concert, and that the birds of other families
follow their march and associate with them, know-
ing from experience that a rich harvest may be
thus reaped. In the same way birds of various

kinds follow the movements of a column of hunting
s
256 The Naturalist in La Plata.

ants, to catch the insects flying up from the earth
to escape from their enemies; swallows also learn
to keep company with the traveller on horseback,
and, crossing and recrossing just before the hoofs,
they catch the small twilight moths driven up from
the grass.

To return to the subject of voice. The tree-creepers
do not possess melodious, or at any rate mellow
notes, although in so numerous a family there is
great variety of tone, ranging from a small reedy
voice like the faint stridulation of a grasshopper,
to the resounding, laughter-like, screaming concerts
of Homorus, which may be heard distinctly two
miles away. As a rule, the notes are loud ringing
calls ; and in many species the cry, rapidly reiterated,
resembles a peal of laughter. With scarcely an
exception, they possess no set song; but in most
species that live always in pairs there are loud,
vehement, gratulatory notes uttered by the two
birds in concert when they meet after a brief
separation. This habit they possess in common
with birds of other families, as, for instance, the
tyrants ; but, in some creepers, out of this confused
outburst of joyous sound has been developed a
musical performance very curious, and perhaps
unique among birds. On meeting, the male and
female, standing close together and facing each
other, utter their clear ringing concert, one emitting
loud single measured notes, while the notes of its
fellow are rapid, rhythmical triplets; their voices
have a joyous character, and seem to accord, tnus
producing a kind of harmony. This manner ot
singing is perhaps most perfect in the oven-bird,
 

 

 

 

 

Ovenbird and Oven.
The Woodhewer Family. 257

Furnarius, and it is very curious that the young
birds, when only partially fledged, are constantly
heard in the nest or oven apparently practising
these duets in the intervals when the parents are
absent; single measured notes, triplets, and long con-
cluding trills are all repeated with wonderful fidelity,
although these notes are in character utterly unlike
the hunger cry, which is like that of other fledglings.

I cannot help thinking that this fact of the young
birds beginning to sing like the adults, while still
confined in their dark cradle, is one of very con-
siderable significance, especially when we consider
the singular character of the performance; and
that it might even be found to throw some light on
the obscure question of the comparative antiquity of
the different and widely separated Dendrocolaptine
groups. It is a doctrine in evolutionary science
that the early maturing of instincts in the young
indicates a high antiquity for the species or group ;
and there is no reason why this principle should
not be extended, in the case of birds at any rate, to
language. It is true that Daines Barrington’s
notion that young song-birds learn to sing only by
imitating the adults still holds its ground; and
Darwin gives it his approval in his Descent of
Man. It is perhaps one of those doctrines which
are partially true, or which do not contain the
whole truth; and it is possible to believe that, while
many singing birds do so learn their songs, or
acquire a greater proficiency in them from hearing
the adults, in other species the song comes instinc-
tively, and is, like other instincts and habits, purely
an “inherited memory.”’
258 The Naturalist in La Plata.

The case of a species in another order of birds
—Crypturi—strikes me as being similar to this of
the oven-bird, and seems to lend some force to the
suggestion I have made concerning the early develop-
ment of voice in the young.

Birds peculiar to South America are said by
anatomists to be less specialized, lower, more
ancient, than the birds of the northern continents,
and among those which are considered lowest and
most ancient are the Tinamous (rail and partridge
like in their habits), birds that lead a solitary,
retiring life, and in most cases have sweet melan-
choly voices. Rhynchotus rufescens, a bird the
size of a fowl, inhabiting the pampas, is perhaps
the sweetest-voiced, and sirgs with great frequency.
Its song or call is heard oftenest towards the
evening, and is composed of five modulated notes,
flute-like in character, very expressive, and uttered
by many individuals answering each other as they
sit far apart concealed in the grass. As we might
have expected, the faculties and instincts of the
young of this species mature at a very early period;
when extremely small, they abandon their parents
to shift for themselves in solitude; and when not
more than one-fourth the size they eventually attain,
they acquire the adult plumage and are able to fly
as well as an old bird. I observed a young bird of
this species, less than a quail in size, at a house on
the pampas, and was told that it had been taken
from the nest when just breaking the shell; it had,
therefore, never seen or heard the parent birds.
Yet this small chick, every day at the approach of
evening, would retire to the darkest corner of the
The Woodhewer Family. 259

dining room, and, concealed under a piece of furni-
ture, would continue uttering its evening song for
an hour or longer at short intervals, and rendering it
so perfectly that I was greatly surprised to hear it ;
for a thrush or other songster at the same period of
life, when attempting to sing, only produces a
chirping sound.

The early singing of the oven-bird fledgling is
important, owing to the fact that the group it
belongs to comprises the least specialized forms in
the family. They are strong-legged, square-tailed,
terrestrial birds, generally able to perch, have
probing beaks, and build the most perfect mud or
stick nests, or burrow in the ground. In the
numerous tree-creeping groups, which seem as
unrelated to the oven-bird as the woodpecker is to
the hoopoe, we find a score of wonderfully different
forms of beak; but many of them retain the prob-
ing character, and are actually used to probe in
rotten wood on trees, and to explore the holes and
deep crevices in the trunk. We have also seen that
some of these tree-creepers revert to the ancestral
habit (if I may so call it) of seeking their food by
probing in the soil. In others, like Dendrornis, in
which the beak has lost this character, and is used
to dig in the wood or to strip off the bark, it has
not been highly specialized, and, compared with the
woodpecker’s beak, is a very imperfect organ, con-
sidering the purpose for which it is used. Yet, on
the principle that “similar functional requirements
frequently lead to the development of similar
structures in animals which are otherwise very
distinct’»—as we see in the tubular tongue in
260 The Naturalist in La Plata.

honey-eaters and humming birds—we might have
expected to find in the Dendrocolaptide a better
imitation of the woodpecker in so variable an organ
as the beak, if not in the tongue.

Probably the oven-birds, and their nearest re-
lations—generalized, hardy, builders of strong nests,
and prolific—represent the parental form; and
when birds of this type had spread over the entire
continent they became in different districts fre-
quenters of marshes, forests, thickets and savannas.
With altered life-habits the numerous divergent
forms originated ; some, like Xiphorynchus, retain-
ing a probing beak in a wonderfully modified form,
attenuated in an extreme degree, and bent like a
sickle; others diverging more in the direction of
nuthatches and woodpeckers.

This sketch of the Dendrocolaptide, necessarily
slight and imperfect, is based on a knowledge of
the habits of about sixty species, belonging to
twenty-eight genera: from personal observation
I am acquainted with less than thirty species. It
is astonishing to find how little has been written
about these most interesting birds in South America.
One tree-creeper only, Furnarius rufus, the oven-
bird par excellence, has been mentioned, on account
of its wonderful architecture, in almost every
general work of natural history published during
the present century; yet the oven-bird does not
surpass, or even equai in interest, many others in
this family of neariy three handred meinpvers.,
CHAPTER XIX.
MUSIC AND DANCING IN NATURE.

In reading books of Natural History we meet with
numerous instances of birds possessing the habit of
assembling together, in many cases always at the
same spot, to indulge in antics and dancing per-
formances, with or without the accompaniment of
music, vocal or instrumental; and by instrumental
music is here meant all sounds other than vocal
made habitually and during the more or less orderly
performances; as, for instance, drumming and
tapping noises; smiting of wings; and humming,
whip-cracking, fan-shutting, grinding, scraping, and
horn-blowing sounds, produced as a rule by the
quills.

There are human dances, in which only one
person performs ata time, the rest of the company
looking on; and some birds, in widely separated
genera, have dances of this kind. A striking
example is the Rupicola, or cock-of-the-rock, of
tropical South America. A mossy level spot of
earth surrounded by bushes is selected for a dancing-
place, and kept well cleared of sticks and stones ;
round this area the birds assemble, when a cock-
bird, with vivid orange-scarlet crest and plumage,
steps into it, and, with spreading wings and tail,
262 The Naturalist in La Plata.

begins a series of movements as if dancing a
minuet ; finally, carried away with excitement, he
leaps and gyrates in the most astonishing manner,
until, becoming exhausted, he retires, and another
bird takes his place.

In other species all the birds in a company unite
in the set performances, and seem to obey an impulse
which affects them simultaneously and in the same
degree; but sometimes one bird prompts the others
and takes a principal part. One of the most curious
instances I have come across in reading is contained
in Mr. Bigg-Wither’s Pioneering in South Brazil.
He relates that one morning in the dense forest
his attention was roused by the unwonted sound
of a bird singing—songsters being rare in that
district. His men, immediately they caught the
sound, invited him to follow them, hinting that he
would probably witness a very curious sight.
Cautiously making their way through the dense
undergrowth, they finally came in sight of a small
stony spot of ground, at the end of a tiny glade ;
and on this spot, some on the stone and some on
the shrubs, were assembled a number of little birds,
about the size of tom-tits, with lovely blue plumage
and red top-knots. One was perched quite still on
a twig, singing merrily, while the others were keep-
ing time with wings and feet in a kind of dancer,
and all twittering an accompaniment. He watched
them for some time, and was satisfied that they
were having a ball and concert, and thoroughly en-
joying themselves ; they then became alarmed, and
the performance abruptly terminated, the birds all
going off in different directions. The natives told
Music and Dancing in Nature. 263

him that these little creatures were known as the
* dancing birds.”

This species was probably solitary, except when
assembling for the purpose of display; but in a
majority of cases, especially in the Passerine order,
the solitary species performs its antics alone, or
with no witness but its mate. Azara, describing a
small finch, which he aptly named Oscilador, says
that early and late in the day it mounts up vertically
to a moderate height; then flies off to a distance
of twenty yards, describing a perfect curve in its
passage; turning, it flies back over the imaginary
line it has traced, and so on repeatedly, appearing
like a pendulum swung in space by an invisible
thread.

Those who seek to know the cause and origin of
this kind of display and of sovg in animals are re-
ferred to Darwin’s Descent of Man for an explanation,
The greater part of that work is occupied with a
laborious argument intended to prove that the love-
feeling inspires the animals engaged in these ex-
hibitions, and that sexual selection, or the voluntary
selection of mates by the females, is the final cause
of all set musical and dancing performances, as well
as of bright and harmonious colouring, and of
ornaments.

The theory, with regard to birds is, that in the
love-season, when the males are excited and engage
in courtship, the females do not fall to the strongest
and most active, nor to those that are first in the
field ; but that in a large number of species they
are endowed with a faculty corresponding to the
esthetic feeling or taste in man, and deliberately
264 The Naturalist in La Plata.

select males for their superiority in some esthetic
quality, such as graceful or fantastic motions,
melody of voice, brilliancy of colour, or perfection
of ornaments. Doubtless all birds were originally
plain-coloured, without ornaments and without
melody, and it is assumed that so it would always
have been in many cases but for the action of this
principle, which, like natural selection, has gone on
accumulating countless small variations, tending to
give a greater lustre to the species in each case, and
resulting in all that we most admire in the animal
world—the Rupicola’s flame-coloured mantle, the
peacock’s crest and starry train, the joyous melody
of the lark, and the pretty or fantastic dancing
performances of birds.

My experience is that mammals and birds, with
few exceptions—probably there are really no excep-
tions—possess the habit of indulging frequently in
more or less regular or set performances, with or
without sound, or composed of sound exclusively ;
and that these performances, which in many animals
are only discordant cries and choruses, and uncouth,
irregular motions, in the more aérial, graceful, and
melodious kinds take immeasurably higher, more
complex, and more beautiful forms. Among the
mammalians the instinct appears almost universal ;
but their displays are, as a rule, less admirable
than those seen in birds. There are some kinds,
it is true, like the squirrels and monkeys, of arbo-
real habits, almost birdlike in their restless energy,
and in the swiftness and certitude of their motions,
in which the slightest impulse can be instantly ex-
pressed in graceful or fantastic action; others, like
Music and Dancing in Nature. 265

the Chinchillide family, have greatly developed
vocal organs, and resemble birds in loquacity; but
mammals generally, compared with birds, are slow
and heavy, and not so readily moved to exhibitions
of the kind I am discussing.

The terrestrial dances, often very elaborate, of
heavy birds, like those of the gallinaceous kind, are
represented in the more volatile species by per-
formances in the air, and these are very much more
beautiful ; while a very large number of birds—
hawks, vultures, swifts, swallows, nightjars, storks,
ibises, spoonbills, and gulls—circle about in the
air, singly or in flocks. Sometimes, in serene
weather, they rise to a vast altitude, and float about
in one spot for an hour or longer at a stretch,
showing a faint bird-cloud in the blue, that does
not change its form, nor grow lighter and denser
like a flock of starlings; but in the seeming con-
fusion there is perfect order, and amidst many
hundreds each swift- or slow-gliding figure keeps
its proper distance with such exactitude that no
two ever touch, even with the extremity of the long
wings, flapping or motionless :—such a multitude,
and such miraculous precision in the endless curving
motions of all the members of it, that the spectator
can lie for an hour on his back without weariness
watching this mystic cloud-dance in the empyrean.

The black-faced ibis of Patagonia, a bird nearly
as large as a turkey, indulges in a curious mad
performance, usually in the evening when feeding-
time is over. The birds of a flock, while winging
their way to the roosting-place, all at once seem
possessed with frenzy, simultaneously dashing
266 The Naturalist in La Plata.

downwards with amazing violence, doubling about
in the most eccentric manner; and when close to
the surface rising again to repeat the action, all the
while making the air palpitate for miles around with
their hard, metallic cries. Other ibises, also birds
of other genera, have similar aérial performances.

The displays of most ducks known to me take
the form of mock fights on the water ; one excep-
tion is the handsome and loquacious whistling:
widgeon of La Plata, which has a pretty aérial per-
formance. A dozen or twenty birds rise up until
they appear like small specks in the sky, and some-
times disappear from sight altogether ; and at that
great altitude they cuntinue hovering in one spot,
often for an hour or longer, alternately closing and
separating ; the fine, bright, whistling notes and
flourishes of the male curiously harmonizing with
the grave, measured notes of the female; and every
time they close they slap each other on the wings
so smartly that the sound can be distinctly heard,
like applauding hand-claps, even after the birds have
ceased to be visible.

The rails, active, sprightly birds with powerful
and varied voices, are great performers ; but owing
to the nature of the ground they inhabit and to
their shy, suspicious character, it is not easy to
observe their antics, The finest of the Platan rails
is the ypecaha, a beautiful, active bird about the size
of the fowl. A number of ypecahas have their
assembling place on a small area of smooth, level
ground, just above the water, and hemmed in by
dense rush beds. First, one bird among the rushes
emits a powerful cry, thrice repeated ; and this is a
Music and Dancing in Nature. 267

note of invitation, quickly responded to by other
birds from all sides as they hurriedly repair to the
usual place. Jn a few moments they appear, to the
number of a dozen or twenty, bursting from the
rushes and running into the open space, and
instantly beginning the performance. This is a
tremendous screaming concert. The screams they
utter have a certain resemblance to the human

 

Dance of Ypecaha Rails.

voice, exerted to its utmost pitch and expressive
of extreme terror, frenzy, and despair. A long,
piercing shriek, astonishing for its vehemence and
power, is succeeded by a lower note, as if in the
first the creature had well nigh exhausted itself:
this double scream is repeated several times, and
followed by other sounds, resembling, as they rise
and fall, half smothered cries of pains and moans
of anguish, Suddenly the unearthly shrieks are
268 The Naturalist in La Plata.

renewed in all their power. While screaming the
birds rush from side to side, as if possessed with
madness, the wings spread and vibrating, the long
beak wide open and raised vertically. This
exhibition lasts three or four minutes, after which
the assembly peacefully breaks up.

The singular wattled, wing-spurred, and long-
toed jacana has a remarkable performance, which
seems specially designed to bring out the concealed

 

Wing-display of Jacanas,

beauty of the silky, greenish-golden wing-quills.
The birds go singly or in pairs, and a dozen or
fifteen individuals may be found in a marshy place
feeding within sight of each other. Occasionally,
in response to a note of invitation, they all in a
moment leave off feeding and fly to one spot, and,
forming a close cluster, and emitting short, excited,
rapidly repeated notes, display their wings, like
beautiful flags grouped loosely together: some hold
Music and Dancing in Nature. 269

the wings up vertically and motionless; others,
half open and vibrating rapidly, while still others
wave them up and down with a slow, measured
motion.

In the ypecaha and jacana displays both sexes
take part. A stranger performance is that of the
spur-winged lapwing of the same region—a species
resembling the lapwing of Europe, but a third
larger, brighter coloured, and armed with spurs.
The lapwing display, called by the natives its
“dance,” or ‘* serious dance ”—by which they mean
Square dance—requires three birds for its per-
formance, and is, so far as I know, unique in this
respect. The birds are so fond of it that they
indulge in it all the year round, and at frequent
intervals during the day, also on moonlight nights.
If a person watches any two birds for some time—
for they live in pairs—he will see another lapwing,
one of a neighbouring couple, rise up and fly to
them, leaving his own mate to guard their chosen
ground; and instead of resenting this visit as an
unwarranted intrusion on their domain, as they
would certainly resent the approach of almost any
other bird, they welcome it with notes and signs of
pleasure. Advancing to the visitor, they place
themselves behind it; then all three, keeping step,
begin a rapid march, uttering resonant drumming
notes in time with their movements ; the notes of the
pair behind being emitted in a stream, like a drum-
roll, while the leader utters loud single notes at
regular intervals. The march ceases; the leader
elevates his wings and stands erect and motionless,

still uttering loud notes ; while the other two, with
T
270 The Naturalist in La Plata.

puffed-out plumage and standing exactly abreast,
stoop forward and downward until the tips of their
beaks touch the ground, and, sinking their rhyth-
mical voices to a murmur, remain for some time in
this posture. The performance is then over and
the visitor goes back to his own ground and mate,
to receive a visitor himself later on.

 

Dance of Spur-winged Lapwings,

In the Passerine order, not the least remarkable
displays are witnessed in birds that are not
accounted songsters, as they do not possess the
highly developed vocal organ confined to the sub-
order Oscines. The tyrant-birds, which represent
in South America the fly-catchers of the Old World,
all have displays of some kind; in a vast majority
of cases these are simply joyous, excited duets
Music and Dancing in Nature. 271

between male and female, composed of impetuous and
more or less confused notes and screams, accom-
panied with beating of wings and other gestures.
In some species choruses take the place of duets,
while in others entirely different forms of display
have been developed. In one group—Cnipolegus—
the male indulges in solitary antics, while the silent,
modest-coloured female keeps in hiding. Thus, the
male of Cnipolegus Hudsoni, an intensely black-
plumaged species with a concealed white wing-band,
takes his stand on a dead twig on the summit of a
bush. At intervals he leaves his perch, displaying
the intense white on the quills, and producing, as
the wings are thrown open and shut alternately,
the effect of successive flashes of light. Then sud-
denly the bird begins revolving in the air about its
perch, like a moth wheeling round and close to the
flame of a candle, emitting a series of sharp clicks
and making a loud humming with the wings.
While performing this aérial waltz the black and
white on the quills mix, the wings appearing like a
grey mist encircling the body. The fantastic dance
over, the bird drops suddenly on to its perch
again ; and, until moved to another display, remains
as stiff and motionless as a bird carved out of jet.
The performance of the scissors-tail, another
tyrant-bird, is also remarkable. ‘This species is
grey and white, with black head and tail and a
crocus-yellow crest. .On the wing it looks like a
large swallow, but with the two outer tail-feathers
a foot long. The scissors-tails always live in pairs,
but at sunset several pairs assemble, the birds
calling excitedly to each other; they then mount
272 The Naturalist in La Plata.

upwards, like rockets, to a great height in the air,
and, after wheeling about for a few moments, pre-
cipitate themselves downwards with amazing
violence in a wild zigzag, opening and shutting the
long tail-feathers like a pair of shears, and producing
loud whirring sounds, as of clocks being wound
rapidly up, with a slight pause after each turn of
the key. This aérial dance over, they alight in
separate couples on the tree tops, each couple
joining in a kind of duet of rapidly repeated, castanet-
like sounds.

The displays of the wood-hewers, or Dendrocolap-
tidz, another extensive family, resemble those of the
tyrant-birds in being chiefly duets, male and female
singing excitedly in piercing or resonant voices, and
with much action. The habit varies somewhat in
the cachalote, a Patagonian species of the genus
Homorus, about the size of the missel-thrush. Old
and young birds live in a family together, and at
intervals, on any fine day, they engage in a grand
screaming contest, which may be heard distinctly at
a distance of a mile and a half. One bird mounts
on to a bush and calls, and instantly all the others
hurry to the spot, and burst out into a chorus of
piercing cries that sound like peals and shrieks of
insane laughter. After the chorus, they all pursue
each other wildly about among the bushes for some
minutes.

In some groups the usual duet-like performances
have developed into a kind of harmonious singing,
which is very curious and pleasant to hear. This
is pre-eminently the case with the oven-birds, as
D’Orbigney first remarked, Thus, in the red oven-
Music and Dancing in Nature. 273

bird, the first bird, on the appearance of its mate
flying to join it, begins to emit loud, measured
notes, and sometimes a continuous trill, somewhat
metallic in sound; but immediately on the other
bird striking in this introductory passage is changed
to triplets, strongly accented on the first note, in a
tempo vivace; while the second bird utters loud
single notes in the same time. While thus singing
they stand facing each other, necks outstretched
and tails expanded, the wings of the first bird
vibrating rapidly to the rapid utterance, while those
of the second bird beat measured time. The finale
consists of three or four notes, uttered by the
second bird alone, strong and clear, in an ascending
scale, the last very piercing.

In the melodists proper the displays, in a majority
of cases, are exclusively vocal, the singer sitting still
on his perch. In the Troupials, a family of starling-
like birds numbering about one hundred and forty
species, there’ are many that accompany singing
with pretty or grotesque antics. The male scream-
ing cow-bird of La Plata, when perched, emits a
hollow-sounding internal note that swells at the end
into a sharp metallic ring, almost bell-like: this is
uttered with wings and tail spread and depressed,
the whole plumage being puffed out as in a strutting
turkey-cock, while the bird hops briskly up and
down on its perch as if dancing. The bell-like note
of the male is followed by an impetuous scream
from the female, and the dance ends. Another
species, the common Argentine cow-bird of La
Plata, when courting puffs out his glossy rich violet
plumage, and, with wings vibrating, emits a succes-
274 The Naturalist tn La Plata.

sion of deep internal notes, followed by a set song
in clear, ringing tones; and then, suddenly taking
wing, he flies straight away, close to the surface,
fluttering like a moth, and at a distance of twenty
to thirty yards turns and flies in a wide circle round
the female, singing loudly all the time, hedging her
in with melody as it were.

Many songsters in widely different families possess
the habit of soaring and falling alternately while
singing, and in some cases all the aérial postures
and movements, the swift or slow descent, vertical,
often with oscillations, or in a spiral, and sometimes
with a succession of smooth oblique lapses, seem to
have an admirable correspondence with the changing
and falling voice—melody and motion being united
in a more intimate and beautiful way than in the
most perfect and poetic forms of human dancing.

One of the soaring singers is a small yellow field-
finch of La Plata —Sycalis luteola ; and this species,
like some others, changes the form ‘of its display
with the seasons. It lives in immense flocks, and
during the cold season it has, like most finches, only
aérial pastimes, the birds wheeling about in a cloud,
pursuing each other with lively chirpings. In
August, when the trees begin to blossom, the flock
betakes itself to a plantation, and, sitting on the
branches, the birds sing in a concert of innumerable
voices, producing a great volume of sound, as of a
high wind when heard ata distance. Heard near,
it is a great mass of melody; not a confused tangle
of musical sounds as when a host of Troupials sing
in concert, but the notes, although numberless,
seem to flow smoothly and separately, producing au
Music and Dancing in Nature. 395

effect on the ear similar to that which rain does on
the sight, when the sun shines on and lightens up the
myriads of falling drops all falling one way. In this
manner the birds sing for hours, without intermission;
every day. Then the passion of love infects them;
the pleasant choir breaks up, and its ten thousand
members scatter wide over the surrounding fields
and pasture lands. During courtship the male has
a feeble, sketchy music, but his singing is then ac-
companied with very charming love antics. His
circlings about the hen-bird; his numberless ad-
vances and retreats, and little soarings above her
when his voice swells with importunate passion ; his
fluttering lapses back to earth, where he lies prone
with outspread, tremulous wings, a suppliant at her
feet, his languishing voice meanwhile dying down to
lispings—all these apt and graceful motions seem to
express the very sickness of the heart. But the
melody during this emotional period is nothing.
After the business of pairing and nest-building is
over, his musical displays take a new and finer form.
He sits perched on a stalk above the grass, and at
intervals soars up forty or fifty yards high; rising,
he utters a series of long melodious notes; then he
descends in a graceful spiral, the set of the motion-
less wings giving him the appearance of a slowly-
falling parachute ; the voice then also falls, the notes
coming lower, sweeter, and more expressive until
he reaches the surface. After alighting the song
continues, the strains becoming longer, thinner, and
clearer, until they dwindle to the finest threads of
sound and faintest tinklings, as from a cithern
touched by fairy fingers. The great charm of the
276 The Naturalist in La Plata.

song is in this slow gradation from the somewhat
throaty notes emitted by the bird when ascending
to the excessively attenuated sounds at the close.

In conclusion of this part I shall speak of one
Species more—the white-banded mocking-bird of
Patagonia, which greatly excels all other songsters
known to me in the copiousness, variety and bril-
liant character of its music. Concealed in the
foliage this bird will sing by the half-hour, repro-
ducing with miraculous fidelity the more or less
melodious set songs of a score of species —a
strange and beautiful performance ; but wonderful
as it seems while it lasts,.one almost ceases to
admire this mimicking bira-art when the mocker,
as if to show by contrast his unapproachable su-
periority, bursts into his own divine song, uttered
with a power, abandon and joyousness resembling,
but greatly exceeding, that of the skylark ‘* singing
at heaven’s gate; the notes issuing in a continuous
torrent ; the voice so brilliant and infinitely varied,
that if “rivalry and emulation” have as large a
place in feathered breasts as some imagine all that
hear this surpassing melody might well languish
ever after in silent despair.

In a vast majority of the finest musical per-
formances the same notes are uttered in the same
order, and after an interval the song is repeated
without any variation: and it seems impossible that
we could in any other way have such beautiful con-
trasts and harmonious lights and shades—the whole
song, so to speak, like a‘‘ melody sweetly played in
tune.” This seeming impossibility is accomplished in
the mocking-bird’s song: the notes never come in the
Music and Dancing in Nature. 247

same order again and again, but, as if inspired, in
a changed order, with variations and new sounds:
and here again it has some resemblance to the sky-
lark’s song, and might be described as the lark’s
song with endless variations and brightened and
spiritualized in a degree that cannot be imagined.

 

White-banded mocking-bird.

This mocking-bird is one of those species that
accompany music with appropriate motions. And
just as its song is, so to speak, inspired and an im-
provization, unlike any song the bird has ever
uttered, so its motions all have the same character
of spontaneity, and follow no order, and yet have a
grace and passion and a perfect harmony with the
278 The Naturalist in La Plata.

music unparalleled among birds possessing a similat
habit. While singing he passes from bush to bush,
sometimes delaying a few moments on and at others
just touching the summits, and at times sinking out
of sight in the foliage : then, in an access of rap-
ture, soaring vertically to a height of a hundred
feet, with measured wing-beats, like those of a heron:
or, mounting suddenly in a wild, hurried zigzag,
then slowly circling downwards, to sit at last with
tail outspread fanwise, and vans, glistening white
in the sunshine, expanded and vibrating, or waved
languidly up and down, with a motion like that of
some broad-winged butterfly at rest on a flower.

I wish now to put this question: What relation
that we can see or imagine to the passion of love
and the business of courtship, have these dancing
and vocal performances in nine cases out of ten?
In such cases, for instance, as that of the scissors-
tail tyrant-bird, and its pyrotechnic evening displays,
when a number of couples leave their nests con-
taining eggs and young to join in a wild aérial
dance: the mad exhibitions of ypecahas and ibises,
and the jacanas’ beautiful exhibition of grouped
wings: the triplet dances of the spur-winged lap-
wing, to perform which two birds already mated are
compelled to call ina third bird to complete the
set: the harmonious duets of the oven-birds, and
the duets and choruses of nearly all the wood-
hewers, and the wing-slapping aérial displays of the
whistling widgeons—will it be seriously contended
that the female of this species makes choice of the
Music and Dancing in Nature. 279

male able to administer the most vigorous and
artistic slaps P

The believer in the theory would put all these
cases lightly aside, to cite that of the male cow-bird
practising antics before the female and drawing a
wide circle of melody round her; or that of the jet-
black, automaton-like, dancing tyrant-bird; and
concerning this species he would probably say that
the plain-plumaged female went about unseen,
critically watching the dancing of different males,
to discover the most excellent performer according
to the traditional standard. And this was, in sub-
stance, what Darwin did. There are many species
in which the male, singly or with others, practises
antics or sings during the love-season before the
female ; and when all such cases, or rather those
that are most striking and bizarre, are brought
together, and when it is gratuitously asserted that
the females do choose the males that show off in the
best manner or that sing best, a case for sexual
selection seems to be made out. How unfair the
argument is, based on these carefully selected cases
gathered from all regions of the globe, and often
not properly reported, is seen when we turn from
the book to nature and closely consider the habits
and actions of all the species inhabiting any one
district. We see then that such cases as those
described and made so much of in the Descent of
Man, and cases like those mentioned in this chapter,
are not essentially different in character, but are
manifestations of one instinct, which appears to be
almost universal among the animals. The explana-
tion I have to offer lies very much on the surface
280 The Naturalist in La Plata.

and is very simple indeed, and, like that of Dr.
Wallace’ with regard to colour and ornaments,
covers the whole of the facts. We see that the
inferior animals, when the conditions of life are
favourable, are subject to periodical fits of gladness,
affecting them powerfully and standing out in vivid
contrast to their ordinary temper. And we know
what this feeling is—this periodic intense elation
which even civilized man occasionally experiences
when in perfect health, more especially when young.
There are moments when he is mad with joy, when
he cannot keep still, when his impulse is to sing and
shout aloud and laugh at nothing, to run and leap
and exert himself in some extravagant way. Among
the heavier mammalians the feeling is manifested in
loud noises, bellowings and screamings, and in lum-
bering, uncouth motions—throwing up of heels, pre-
tended panics, and ponderous mock battles.

In smaller and livelier animals, with greater
celerity and certitude in their motions, the feeling
shows itself in more regular and often in more com-
plex ways. Thus, Felide when young, and, in very
agile, sprightly species like the Puma, throughout
life, simulate all the actions of an animal hunting
its prey—sudden, intense excitement of discovery,
concealment, gradual advance, masked by interven-

‘It is curious to find that Dr. Wallace’s idea about colour
has been independently hit upon by Ruskin. Of stones he writes
in Frondes Agrestis :—‘‘I have often had occasion to allude to
the apparent connection of brilliancy of colour with vigour of life
and purity of substance. This is pre-eminently the case in the
mineral kingdom. The perfection with which the particles of
any substance unite in crystallization, corresponds in that king-
dom to the vital power in organic nature.”
Music and Dancing in Nature. 281

ing objects, with intervals of watching, when they
crouch motionless, the eyes flashing and tail waved
from side to side ; finally, the rush and spring, when
the playfellow is captured, rolled over on his back
and worried to imaginary death. Other species of
the most diverse kinds, in which voice is greatly
developed, join in noisy concerts and choruses;
many of the cats may be mentioned, also dogs and
foxes, capybaras and other loquacious rodents; and
in the howling monkeys this kind of performance
rises to the sublime uproar of the tropical forest at
eventide.

Birds are more subject to this universal joyous
instinct than mammals, and there are times when
some species are constantly overflowing with it;
and as they are so much freer than mammals, more
buoyant and graceful in action, more loquacious,
and have voices so much finer, their gladness shows
itself in a greater variety of ways, with more regular
and beautiful motions, and with melody. But every
Species, or group of species, has its own inherited
form or style of performance ; and, however rude
and irregular this may be, as in the case of the pre-
tended stampedes and fights of wild cattle, that is
the form in which the feeling will always be ex-
pressed. If all men, at some exceedingly remote
period in their history, had agreed to express the
common glad impulse, which they now express in
such an infinite variety of ways or do not express
at all, by dancing a minuet, and minuet-dancing
had at last come to be instinctive, and taken to
spontaneously by children at an early period, just
as they take to walking “on their hind legs,”
282 The Naturalist in La Plata.

man’s case would be like that of the inferior
animals.

I was one day watching a flock of plovers, quietly
feeding on the ground, when, in a moment, all the
birds were seized by a joyous madness, and each
one, after making a vigorous peck at his nearest
neighbour, began running wildly about, each trying
in passing to peck other birds, while seeking by
means of quick doublings to escape being pecked in
turn. This species always expresses its glad im-
pulse in the same way; but how different in form
is this simple game of touch-who-touch-can from
the triplet dances of the spur-winged lapwings,
with their drumming music, pompous gestures, and
military precision of movement! How different
also from the aérial performance of another bird of
the same family—the Brazilian stilt—in which one is
pursued by the others, mounting upwards in a wild,
eccentric flight until they are all but lost to view;
and back to earth again, and then skywards once
more; the pursued bird when overtaken giving
place to another individual, and the pursuing pack
making the air ring with their melodious barking
cries! How different again are all these from the
aérial pastimes of the snipe, in which the bird, in
its violent descent, is able to produce such wonder-
ful, far-reaching sounds with its tail-feathers! The
snipe, as a rule, is a solitary bird, and, like the
oscillating finch mentioned early in this paper, is
content to practise its pastimes without a witness.
In the gregarious kinds all perform together: for
this feeling, like fear, is eminently contagious, and the
sight of one bird mad with joy will quickly make
Music and Dancing in Nature. 283

the whole flock mad. There are also species that
always live in pairs, like the scissors-tails already
mentioned, that periodically assemble in numbers
for the purpose of display. The crested screamer,
a very large bird, may also be mentioned: male and
female sing somewhat harmoniously together, with
voices of almost unparalleled power: but these
birds also congregate in large numbers, and a
thousand couples, or even several thousands, may
be assembled together : and, at intervals, both by
day and night, all sing in concert, their combined
voices producing a thunderous melody which seems
to shake the earth. As a rule, however, birds that
live always in pairs do not assemble for the purpose
of display, but the joyous instinct 1s expressed by
duet-like performances between male and female
Thus, in the three South American Passerine
families, the tyrant-birds, wood-hewers, and ant-
thrushes, numbering together between eight and
nine hundred species, a very large majority appear
to have displays of this description.

In my own experience, in cases where the male
and female together, or assembled with others,
take equal parts in the set displays, the sexes are
similar, or differ little ; but where the female takes
no part in the displays the superiority of the male
in brightness of colour is very marked. One or two
instances bearing on this point may be given.

A scarlet-breasted troupial of La Plata perches
conspicuously on a tall plant in afield, and at inter-
vals soars up vertically, singing, and, at the highest
ascending point, flight and song end in a kind of
aérial somersault and vocal flourish at the same
284 The Naturalist in La Plata.

moment. Meanwhile, the dull-plumaged female is
not seen and not heard: for not evena skulking
crake lives in closer seclusion under the herbage—
so widely have the sexes diverged in this species.
Is the female, then, without an instinct so common ?
—has she no sudden fits of irrepressible gladness ?
Doubtless she has them, and manifests them down
in her place of concealment in lively chirpings and
quick motions—the simple, primitive form in which
gladness is expressed in the class of birds. In the
various species of the genus Cnipolegus, already
mentioned, the difference in the sexes is just as
great as in the case of the troupial: the solitary,
intensely black, statuesque male has, we have seen,
a set and highly fantastic performance; but on
more than one occasion I have seen four or five
females of one species meet together and have a
little simple performance all to themselves—in form
a kind of lively mock fight.

It might be objected that when a bird takes its
stand and repeats a set finished song at intervals
for an hour at a stretch, remaining quietly perched,
such a performance appears to be different in
character from the irregular and simple displays
which are unmistakably caused by a sudden glad
impulse. But we are familiar with the truth that
in organic nature great things result from small
beginnings—a common flower, and our own bony
skulls, to say nothing of the matter contained within
them, are proofs of it. Only a limited number of
species sing ina highly finished manner. Looking
at many species, we find every gradation, every
shade, from the simple joyous chirp and cry to the
Music and Dancing in Nature. 285

most perfect melody. Even in a single branch of
the true vocalists we may see it—from the chirping
bunting, and noisy but tuneless sparrow, to linnet
and goldfinch and canary. Not only do a large
majority of species show the singing instinct, or
form of display, in a primitive, undeveloped state,
but in that state it continues to show itself in the
young of many birds in which melody is most highly
developed in the adult. And where the develop-
ment has been solely in the male the female never
rises above that early stage; in her lively chirpings
and little mock’ fights and chases, and other simple
forms which gladness takes in birds, as well as in
her plainer plumage, and absence of ornament, she
represents the species at some remote period. And
as with song so with antics and all set performances
aérial or terrestrial, from those of the whale and
the elephant to those of the smallest insect.
Another point remains to be noticed, and that is
the greater frequency and fulness in displays of all
kinds, including song, during the love season. And
here Dr. Wallace’s colour and ornament theory
helps us to an explanation. At the season of court-
_ ship, when the conditions of life are most favourable
vitality is at its maximum, and naturally it is then
that the proficiency in all kinds of dancing-antics,
aérial and terrestrial, appears greatest, and that
melody attains its highest perfection. This applies
chiefly to birds, but even among birds there are
exceptions, as we have seen in the case of the field-
finch, Syvalis luteola. The love-excitement is |
doubtless pleasurable to them, and it takes the

form in which keenly pleasurable emotions are
U
286 The Naturalist in La Plata.

habitually expressed, although not infrequently
with variations due to the greajer intensity of the
feeling. In some migrants the males arrive before
the females, and no sooner have they recovered
from the effects of their journey than they burst
out into rapturous singing; these are not love-strains,
since the females have not yet arrived, and pairing-
time is perhaps a month distant; their singing
merely expresses their overflowing gladness. The
forest at that season is vocal, not only with the
fine melody of the true songsters, but with hoarse
cawings, piercing cries, shrill duets, noisy choruses,
drummings, boomings, trills, wood-tappings—every
sound with which different species express the glad
impulse; and birds like the parrot that only exert
their powerful voices in screamings—because ‘“‘ they
can do no other”—then scream their loudest.
When courtship begins it has in many cases the
effect of increasing the beauty of the performance,
giving added sweetness, verve, and brilliance to the
song, and freedom and grace to the gestures and
motions. But, as I have said, there are exceptions.
Thus, some birds that are good melodists at other
times sing in a feeble, disjointed manner during
courtship. In Patagonia I found that several of
the birds with good voices—one a mocking bird—
were, like the robin at home, autumn and winter
songsters.

The argument has been stated very briefly: but
little would be gained by the mere multiplication of
instances, since, however many, they would be
selected instances—from a single district, it is true,
while those in the Descent of Man were brought
Music and Dancing in Nature. 287

together from an immeasurably wider field; but the
principle is the same in both cases, and to what I
have written it may be objected that, if, instead of
twenty-five, I had given a hundred cases, taking
them as they came, they might have shown a larger
proportion of instances like that of the cow-bird, in
which the male has a set performance practised
only during the love-season and in the presence of
the female.

It is, no doubt, true that all collections of facts
relating to animal life present nature to us some-
what as a “ fautastic realm ”’—unavoidably so, in a
measure, since the writing would be too bulky, or
too dry, or too something inconvenient, if we did
not take only the most prominent facts that come
before us, remove them from their places, where
alone they can be seen in their proper relations to
numerous other less prominent facts, and rearrange
them patchwork-wise to make up our literature.
But [ am convinced that any student of the subject
who will cast aside his books—supposing that they
have not already bred a habit in his mind of seeing
only “in accordance with verbal statement ’’—and
go directly to nature to note the actions of animals
for himself—actions which, in many cases, appear
to lose all significance when set down in writing—
the result of such independent investigation will be
a conviction that conscious sexual selection on the
part of the female is not the cause of music and
dancing performances in birds, nor of the brighter
colours and ornaments that distinguish the male. It
is true that the females of some species, both in
the vertebrate and insect kingdoms, do exercise a
288 © The Naturalist in La Plata.

preference; but ina vast majority of species the male
takes the female he finds, or that he is able to win
from other competitors; and if we go to the reptile
class we find that in the ophidian order, which
excels in variety and richness of colour, there is no
such thing as preferential mating; and if we go to
the insect class, we find that in butterflies, which
surpass all creatures in their glorious beauty, the
female gives herself up’to the embrace of the first
male that appears, or else is captured by the
strongest male, just as she might be by a mantis or
some other rapacious insect.
CHAPTER XX.
BIOGRAPHY OP THE VIZCACHA.
(Lagostomus Trichodactylus.)

THE vizcacha is perhaps the most characteristic of
the South American Rodentia,! while its habits, in
some respects, are more interesting than those of
any other rodent known: it is, moreover, the most
common mammal we have on the pampas; and all
these considerations have induced me to write a
very full account of its customs. It is necessary to
add that since the following pages were written at
my home on the pampas a great war of extermina-
tion has been waged against this animal by the

' « According to Mr. Waterhouse, of all rodents the vizcacha
is most nearly related to marsupials; but in the points in which
it approaches this order its relations are general, that is, not to
any one marsupial species more than to another. As these points
of affinity are believed to be real and not merely adaptive, they
must be due in accordance with our view to inheritance from a
common progenitor. Therefore we must suppose either that all
rodents, including the vizcacha, branched off from some ancient
marsupial, which will naturally have been more or less inter-
mediate in character with respect to all existing marsupials; or,
that both rodents and marsupials branched off from a common
progenitor, ... On either view we must suppose that the
vizeacha has retained, by inheritance, more of the characters of
its ancient progenitor than have other rodents.”—Darwin ; Origin

of Species,
290 The Naturalist in La Plata.

landowners, which has been more fortunate in its
results—or unfortunate if one’s sympathies are with
the vizcacha—than the war of tne Australians
against their imported rodent—the smaller and
more prolific rabbit.

‘The vizcachas on the pampas of Buenos Ayres
live in societies, usually numbering twenty or thirty

oO

 

Vizeachas.

members. The village, which is called Vizcachera, is
composed of a dozen or fifteen burrows or mouths ;
for one entrance often serves for two or more distinct
holes. Often, where the ground is soft, there are
twenty or thirty or more burrows in an old vizca-
chera; but on stony, or “ tosca’’ soil even an old
one may have no more than four or five burrows.
They are deep wide-mouthed holes, placed very
close together, the entire village covering an area
Biography of the Vizcacha. 291

of from one hundred to two hundred square feet of
ground.

The burrows vary greatly in extent; and usually
in a vizcachera there are several that, at a distance
of from four to six feet from the entrance, open into
large circular chambers. From these chambers
other burrows diverge in all directions, some run-
ning horizontally, others obliquely downwards to a
maximum depth of six feet from the surface: some
of these burrows or galleries communicate with
those of other burrows. A vast amount of loose
earth is thus brought up, and forms a very irregular
mound, fifteen to thirty inches above the surround-
ing level.

It will afford some conception of the numbers of
these vizcacheras on the settled pampas when I say
that, in some directions, a person might ride five
hundred miles and never advance half a mile without
seeing one or more of them. In districts where,
as far as the eye can see, the plains are as level and
smooth as a bowling-green, especially in winter
when the grass is close-cropped, and where the
rough giant-thistle has not sprung up, these
mounds appear like brown or dark spots on a green
surface. They are the only irregularities that occur
to catch the eye, and consequently form an im-
portant feature in the scenery. In some places
they are so near together that a person on horse-
back may count a hundred of them from one point
of view.

The sites of which the vizcacha invariably makes
choice to work on, as well as his manner of burrow-
ing, adapt him peculiarly to live and thrive on the
292 The Naturalist in La Plata.

open pampas. Other burrowing species seem
always to fix upon some spot where there is a bank
or a sudden depression in the soil, or where there
is rank herbage, or a bush or tree, about the roots
of which to begin their kennel. ‘They are averse
to commence digging on a clear level surface,
either because it is not easy for them where they
have nothing to rest their foreheads against while
scratching, or because they possess a wary instinct
that impels them to place the body in concealment
whilst working on the surface, thus securing the
concealment of the burrow after it is made.
Certain it is that where large hedges have been
planted on the pampas, multitudes of opossums,
weasels, skunks, armadillos, &c., come and make
their burrows beneath them; and where there are
no hedges or trees, all these species make their
kennels under bushes of the perennial thistle, or
where there is a shelter of some kind. The vizcacha,
on the contrary, chooses an open level spot, the
cleanest he can find to burrow on. The first thing
that strikes the observer when viewing the vizca-
chera closely is the enormous size of the entrance
of the burrows, or, at least, of several of the central
ones in the mound; for there are usually several
smaller outside burrows. The pit-like opening to
some of these principal burrows is often four to six
feet across the mouth, and sometimes deep enough
for a tall man to stand up waist-deep in. How
these large entrances can be made on a level surface
may be seen when the first burrow or burrows of
an incipient vizcachera are formed. It is not
possible to tell what induces a vizcacha to be the
Biography of the Vizcacha. 293

founder of a new community; for they increase
very slowly, and furthermore are extremely fond of
each other’s society; and it is invariably one
individual that leaves his native village to found a
new and independent one. If it were to have
better pasture at hand, then he would certainly
remove to a considerable distance ; but he merely
goes from forty to fifty or sixty yards off to begin
his work. Thus it is that in desert places, where
these animals are rare, a solitary vizcachera is never
seen; but there are always several close together,
though there may be no others on the surrounding
plain for leagues. When the vizcacha has made his
habitation, it is but a single burrow, with only
himself for an inhabitant, perhaps for many months.
Sooner or later, however, others join him: and
these will be the parents of innumerable genera-
tions ; for they construct no temporary lodging-
place, as do the armadillos and other species, but
their posterity continues in the quiet possession of
the habitations bequeathed to it; how long, it is
impossible to say. Old men who have lived all
their lives in one district remember that many of
the vizcacheras around them existed when they
were children. It is invariably a male that begins
a new village, and makes his burrow in the following
manner, though he does not always observe the
same method. He works very straight into the
earth, digging a hole twelve or fourteen inches wide,
but not so deep, at an angle of about 25° with the
surface. But after he has progressed inwards a
few feet, the vizcacha is no longer satisfied with
merely scattering away the loose earth he fetches
294 The Naturalist in La Plata.

up, but cleans it away so far in a straight line from
the entrance, and scratches so much on this line
(apparently to make the slope gentler), that he
soon forms a trench a foot or more in depth, and
often three or four feet in length. Its use is, as [
have inferred, to facilitate the conveying of the
loose earth as far as possible from the entrance of
the burrow. But after a while the animal is un-
willing that it should accumulate even at the end of
this long passage; he therefore proceeds to make
two additional trenches, that form an acute, some-
times a right angle, converging into the first, so
that when the whole is completed it takes the form
of a capital Y.

These trenches are continually deepened and
lengthened as the burrow progresses, the angular
segment of earth between them scratched away,
until by degrees it has been entirely conveyed off,
and in its place is the one deep great unsymmetrical
mouth I have already described. There are soils
that will not admit of the animals working in this
manner. Where there are large cakes of “tosca”’
near the surface, as in many localities on the
southern pampas, the vizcacha makes its burrow as
best he can, and without the regular trenches. In
earths that crumble much, sand or gravel, he also
works under great disadvantages.

The burrows are made best in tbe black and
red moulds of the pampas; but even in such soils
the entrances of many burrows are made differently.
In some the central trench is wanting, or is so short
that there appear but two passages converging
directly into the burrow; or these two trenches
Bugraphy of the Viscacha. 295

may be so curved inwards as to form the segment
of a circle. Many other forms may also be noticed,
but usually they appear to be only modifications of
the most common Y-shaped system.

As [have remarked that its manner of burrowing
has peculiarly adapted the vizcacha to the pampas,
it may be asked what particular advantage a species
that makes a wide-mouthed burrow possesses over
those that excavate in the usual way. On a
declivity, or at the base of rocks or trees, there
would be none; but on the perfectly level and
shelterless pampas, the durability of the burrow, a
circumstance favourable to the animal’s preserva-
tion, is owing altogether to its being made in this
way, and to several burrows being made together.
The two outer trenches diverge so widely from the
mouth that half the earth brought out is cast
behind instead of before it, thus creating a mound
of equal height about the entrance, by which it is
secured from water during great rainfalls, while
the cattle avoid treading over the great pit-like
entrances. But the burrows of the dolichotis,
armadillo, and other species, when made on perfectly
level ground, are soon trod on and broken in by
cattle; in summer they are choked up with dust
and rubbish; and, the loose earth having all been
thrown up together in a heap on one side, there is
no barrier to the water which in every great rain-
fall flows in and obliterates the kennel, drowning
or driving out the tenant.

I have been minute in describing the habitations
of the vizcacha, as I esteem the subject of prime
importance in considering the zoology or this
296 The Naturalist in La Plata.

portion of America. The vizcacha does not benefit
himself alone by his perhaps unique style of
barrowing; but this habit has proved advantageous
to several other species, and has been so favour-
able to two of our birds that they are among the
most common species found here, whereas without
these burrows they would have been exceedingly
rare, Since the natural banks in which they breed
are scarcely found anywhere on the pampas. I
refer to the Minera (Geositta cunicularia), which
makes its breeding-holes in the bank-like sides of
the vizcacha’s burrow, and to the little swallow
(Atticora cyanoleuca) which breeds in these ex-.
cavations when forsaken by the Minera. Few old
vizcacheras are seen without some of these little
parasitical burrows in them.

Birds are not the only beings in this way related
to the vizcachas: the fox and the weasel of the
pampas live almost altogether in them. Several
insects also frequent these burrows that are seldom
found anywhere else. Of these the most interesting
are:—a large predacious nocturnal bug, shining
black, with red wings; a nocturnal Cicindela, a
beautiful insect, with dark green striated wing-cases
and pale red legs; also several diminutive wing-
less wasps. Of the last I have counted six species,
most of them marked with strongly contrasted
colours, black, red, and white. There are also
other wasps that prey on the spiders found on the
vizcachera. All these and others are so numerous
on the mounds that dozens of them might there be
collected any summer day; but if sought for in
other situations they are exceedingly rare. If the
Bugvraphy of the Vizcacha, 207

dry mound of soft earth which the vizcacha elevates
amidst a waste of humid, close-growing grass is not
absolutely necessary to the existence of all these
species, it supplies them with at least one favourable.
condition, and without doubt thereby greatly in-
creases their numbers: they, too, whether preda-
cious or preyed on, have so many relations with
other outside species, and these again with still
others, that it would be no mere fancy to say that
probably hundreds of species are either directly or
indirectly affected in their struggle for existence by
the vizcacheras so abundantly sprinkled over .the
pampas.

In winter the vizcachas seldom leave their bur-
rows till dark, but in summer come out before
sunset ; and the vizcachera is then a truly interest-
ing spectacle. Usually one of the old males first
appears, and sits on some prominent place on the
mound, apparently in no haste to begin his evening
meal. When approached from the front he stirs
not, but eyes the intruder with a bold indifferent
stare. If the person passes to one side, he deigns
not to turn his head.

Other vizcachas soon begin to appear, each one
quietly taking up his station at his burrow’s mouth,
the females, known by their greatly inferior size
and lighter grey colour, sitting upright on their
haunches, as if to command a better view, and in-
dicating by divers sounds and gestures that fear and
curiosity struggles in them for mastery; for they
are always wilder and sprightlier in their motions
than the males. With eyes fixed on the intruder,
at intervals they dodge the head, emitting at the
298 The Naturalist in La Plata.

same time an internal note with great vehemence;
and suddenly, as the danger comes nearer, they
plunge simultaneously, with a startled cry, into
their burrows. But in some curiosity is the
strongest emotion; for, in spite of their fellow’s
contagious example, and already half down the en-
trance, again they start up to scrutinize the stranger,
and will then often permit him to walk within five
or six paces of them.

Standing on the mound there is frequently a
pair of burrowing owls (Pholeoptynx cunicularia).
These birds generally make their own burrows to
breed in, or sometimes take possession of one of the
lesser outside burrows of the village; but their
favourite residence, when not engaged in tending
their eggs or young, is on the vizcachera. Here a
pair will sit all day; and I have often remarked a
couple close together on the edge of the burrow;
and when the vizcacha came out in the evening,
though but a hand’s breadth from them, they did
not stir, nor did he notice them, so accustomed are
these creatures to each other. Usually a couple of
the little burrowing Geositta are also present. They
are lively creatures, running with great rapidity
about the mound and bare space that surrounds it,
suddenly stopping and jerking their tails in a slow
deliberate manner, and occasionally uttering their
cry, a trill, or series of quick short clear notes, re-
sembling somewhat the shrill excessive laughter of
a child. Among the grave, stationary vizcachas, of
which they take no heed, perhaps half a dozen or
more little swallows (Atticora cyanoleuca) are seen,
now clinging altogether to the bank-like entrance
Biography of the Vizcacha, 299

of a burrow, now hovering over it in a moth-like
manner, as if uncertain where to alight, and anon
sweeping about in circles, but never ceasing their
low and sorrowful notes.

The vizcachera with all its incongruous inhabi-
tants thus collected upon it is to a stranger one of
the most novel sights the pampas afford.

The vizcacha appears to be a rather common
species over all the extensive Argentine territory ;
but they are so exceedingly abundant on the pampas
inhabited by man, and comparatively so rare in the
desert places I have been in, that I was at first much
surprised at finding them so unequally distributed.
I have also mentioned that the vizcacha is a tame
familiar creature. This is in the pastoral districts,
where they are never disturbed; but in wild regions,
where he is scarce, he is exceedingly wary, coming
forth long after dark, and plunging into his burrow
on the slightest alarm, so that it is a rare thing
to get asight of him. The reason is evident enough ;
in desert regions the vizcacha has several deadly
enemies in the larger rapacious mammals. Of
these the puma or lion (Felis concolor) is the most
numerous, as it is also the swiftest, most subtle,
and most voracious; for, as regards these traits, the
jaguar (F. onca) is an inferior animal. To the in-
satiable bloody appetite of this creature nothing
comes amiss; he takes the male ostrich by surprise,
and slays that wariest of wild things on his nest;
he captures little birds with the dexterity of a cat,
and hunts for diurnal armadillos ; he comes unawares
upon the deer and huanaco, and, springing like
lightning on them, dislocates their necks before their
300 The Naturalist in La Plata.

bodies touch the earth. Often after he has thus
slain them, he leaves their bodies untouched for the
Polyborus and vulture to feast on, so great a delight
does he take in destroying life. The vizcacha falls
an easy victim to this subtle creature; and it is not
to be wondered at that it becomes wild to excess,
and rare in regions hunted over by such an enemy,
even when all other conditions are favourable to its
increase. But as soon as these wild regions are
settled by man the pumas are exterminated, and the
sole remaining foe of the vizcacha is the fox, com-
paratively an insignificant one.

The fox takes up his residence in a vizcachera,
and succeeds, after some quarrelling (manifested in
snarls, growls, and other subterranean warlike
sounds), in ejecting the rightful owners of one of the
burrows, which forthwith becomes his. Certainly
the vizcachas are not much injured by being com-
pelled to relinquish the use of one of their kennels for
a season or permanently ; for, if the locality suits him,
the fox remains with them always. Soon they grow
accustomed to the unwelcome stranger ; he is quiet
and unassuming in demeanour, and often in the
evening sits on the mound in their company, until
they regard him with the same indifference they do
the burrowing owl. But in spring, when the young
vizcachas are large enough to leave their cells, then
the fox makes them his prey; and if it is a bitch
fox, with a family of eight or nine young to provide
for, she will grow so bold as to hunt her helpless
quarry from hole to hole, and do battle with the old
ones, and carry off the young in spite of them, so
that all the young animals in the village are even-
Biography of the Viscacha. 301

tually destroyed. Often when the young foxes are
large enough to follow their mother, the whole
family takes leave of the vizcachera where such cruel
havoc has been made to settle in another, there to
continue their depredations. But the fox has ever
a relentless foe in man, and meets with no end of
bitter persecutions ; it is consequently much more
abundant in desert or thinly settled districts than
in such as are populous, so that in these the
check the vizcachas receive from the foxes is not
appreciable.

The abundance of cattle on the pampas has made
it unnecessary to use the vizcacha as an article of
food. His skin is of no value; therefore man, the
destroyer of his enemies, has hitherto been the
greatest benefactor of his species. Thus they have
been permitted to multiply and spread themselves
to an amazing extent, so that the half-domestic
cattle on the pampas are not nearly so familiar with
man, or so fearless of his presence as are the viz-
cachas. It is not that they do him no injury, but
because they do it indirectly, that they have so long
enjoyed immunity from persecution. It is amusing
to see the sheep-farmer, the greatest sufferer from
the vizcachas, regarding them with such indifference
as to permit them to swarm on his “ run,” and bur-
row within a stone’s throw of his dwelling with
impunity, and yet going a distance from home to
persecute with unreasonable animosity a fox, skunk,
or opossum on account of the small annual loss it
inflicts on the poultry-yard. That the vizcacha has
comparatively no adverse conditions to war with

wherever man is settled is evident when we consider
xX
302 The Naturalist in La Plata.

its very slow rate of increase, and yet see them in
such incalculable numbers. The female has but one
litter in the year of two young, sometimes of three.
She becomes pregnant Jate in April, and brings
forth in September; the period of gestation is, I
think, rather less than five months.

The vizcacha is about two years growing. A
full-sized male measures to the root of the tail
twenty-two inches, and weighs from fourteen to
fifteen pounds; the female is nineteen inches in
length, and her greatest weight nine pounds. Pro-
bably it is a long-lived, and certainly it is a very hardy
animal. Where it has any green substance to eat
it never drinks water; but after a long summer
drought, when for months it has subsisted on
bits of dried thistle-stalks and old withered grass,
if a shower falls it will come out of its burrows
even at noonday and drink eagerly from the pools.
It has been erroneously stated that vizcachas
subsist on roots. Their food is grass and seeds;
but they may also sometimes eat roots, as the
ground is occasionally seen scratched up about the
burrows. In March, when the stalks of the peren-
nial cardoon or Castile thistle (Cynara cardunculus)
are dry, the vizcachas fell them by gnawing about
their roots, and afterwards tear to pieces the great
dry flower-heads to get the seeds imbedded deeply
in them, of which they seem very fond. Large
patches of thistle are often found served thus, the
ground about them literally white with the silvery
bristles they have scattered. This cutting down
tall plants to get the seeds at the top seems very
like an act of pure intelligence; but the fact is,
Bugraphy of the Vizcacha. 303

the vizcachas cut down every tall plant they can.
I have seen whole acres of maize destroyed by them,
yet the plants cut down were left untouched. If
posts be put into the ground within range of their
nightly rambles they will gnaw till they have felled
them, unless of a wood hard enough to resist their
chisel-like incisors.

The strongest instinct of this animal is to clear
the ground thoroughly about its burrows; and it
is this destructive habit that makes it necessary for
cultivators of the soil to destroy all the vizcachas
in or near their fields. On the uninhabited pampas,
where the long grasses grow, I have often admired
the vizcachera; for it is there the centre of a clean
space, often of half an acre in extent, on which
there is an even close-shaven turf: this clearing is
surrounded by the usual rough growth of herbs and
giant grasses. In such situations this habit of
clearing the ground is eminently advantageous to
them, as it affords them a comparatively safe spot
to feed and disport themselves on, and over which
they can fly to their burrows without meeting any
obstruction, on the slightest alarm.

Of course the instinct continues to operate where
itis no longer of any advantage. In summer, when
the thistles are green, even when growing near the
burrows, and the giant thistle (Carduus mariana)
springs up most luxuriantly right on the mound,
the vizcachas will not touch them, either disliking
the strong astringent sap, or repelled by the thorns
with which they are armed. As soon as they dry,
and the thorns become brittle, they are levelled ;
and afterwards, when the animal begins to drag
304 The Naturalist in La Plata.

them about and cut them up, as his custom is, he
accidentally discovers and feasts on the seed: for
vizcachas are fond of exercising their teeth on hard
substances, such as sticks and bones, just as cats
are of ‘sharpening their claws” on trees.

Another remarkable habit of the vizcacha, that of
dragging to and heaping about the mouth of his
burrow every stalk he cuts down, and every portable
object that by dint of great strength he can carry,
has been mentioned by Azara, Darwin, and othiers.
On the level plains it is a useful habit; for as the
vizeachas are continually deepening and widening
their burrows, the earth thrown out soon covers up
these materials, and so assists in raising the mound.
On the Buenos-Ayrean pampas numbers of viz-
cacheras would annually be destroyed by water in
the great sudden rainfalls were the mounds less
high. But this is only an advantage when the
animals inhabit a perfectly level country subject to
flooding rains ; for where the surface is unequal they
invariably prefer high to low ground to burrow on,
and are thus secured from destruction by water;
yet the instinct is as strong in such situations as on
the level plains. The most that can be said of a
habit apparently so obscure in its origin and uses is,
that it appears to be part of the instinct of clearing
the ground about the village. Every tall stalk the
vizcacha cuts down, évery portable object he finds,
must be removed to make the surface clean and
smooth; but while encumbered with it he does not
proceed further from his burrows, but invariably re-
tires towards them, and so deposits it upon the
mound. So well known is this habit, that whatever
Biography of the Vizcacha. 305

article is lost by night—whip, pistol, or knife—the
loser next morning visits the vizcacheras in the
vicinity, quite sure of finding it there. People
also visit the vizcacheras to pick up sticks for
firewood.

The vizcachas are cleanly in their habits; and the
fur, though it has a strong earthy smell, is kept ex-
ceedingly neat. The hind leg and foot afford a
very beautiful instance of adaptation. Propped by
the hard curved tail, they sit up erect, and as firmly
on the long horny disks on the undersides of the
hind legs as a man stands on his feet. Most to be
admired, on the middle toe the skin thickens into a
round cushion, in which the curved teeth-like bristles
are set; nicely graduated in length, so that “ each
particular hair’? may come into contact with the
skin when the animal scratches or combs itself. As
to the uses of this appendage there can be no dif-
ference of opinion, as there is about the serrated
claw in birds. Itis quite obvious that the animal
cannot scratch himself with his hind paw (as all
mammals do) without making use of this natural
comb. Then the entire foot is modified, so that
this comb shall be well protected, and yet not be
hindered from performing its office: thus the inner
toe is pressed close to the middle one, and so de-
pressed that it comes under the cushion of skin, and
cannot possibly get before the bristles, or interfere
with their coming against the skin in scratching, as
would certainly be the case if this toe were free as
the outer one.

Again, the vizcachas appear to form the deep
trenches before the burrows by scratching the earth
306 The Naturalist in La Plata.

violently backwards with the hind claws. Now
these straight, sharp, dagger-shaped claws, and
especially the middle one, are so long that the
vizcacha is able to perform all this rough work
without the bristles coming into contact with the
ground, and so getting worn by the friction. The
Tehuelcho Indians in Patagonia comb their hair with
a brush-comb very much like that on the vizcacha’s
toe, but in their case it does not properly fulfil its
office, or else the savages make little use of it. Viz-
cachas have a remarkable way of dusting themselves :
the animal suddenly throws himself on his back,
and, bringing over his hind legs towards his head,
depresses them till his feet touch the ground. In
this strange posture he scratches up the earth with
great rapidity, raising a little cloud of dust, then
rights himself with a jerk, and, after an interval,
repeats the dusting. Usually they scratch a hole
in the ground to deposit their excrements in.
Whilst opening one of the outside burrows that had
no communication with the others, I once discovered
a vast deposit of their dung (so great that it must
have been accumulating for years) at the extremity.
To ascertain whether this be a constant, or only
a casual habit, it would be necessary to open up
entirely a vast number of vizcacheras. When a
vizcacha dies in his burrow the carcass is, after
some days, dragged out and left upon the mound.
The language of the vizcacha is wonderful for its
variety. When the male is feeding he frequently
pauses to utter a succession of loud, percussive, and
somewhat jarriug cries; these he utters in aleisurely
manner, and immediately after goes on feeding.
Biography of the Vizcacha. 307

Often he utters this cry in a low grunting tone.
One of his commonest expressions sounds like the
violent hawking of a man clearing his throat. At
other times he bursts into piercing tones that may
be heard a mile off, beginning like the excited and
quick-repeated squeals of a young pig, and growing
longer, more attenuated, and quavering towards the
end. After retiring alarmed into the burrows, he
repeats at intervals a deep internal moan. All
these, and many other indescribable guttural, sighing,
shrill, and deep tones, are varied a thousand ways
in strength and intonation, according to the age,
sex, or emotions of the individual; and I doubt if
there is in the world any other four-footed thing so
loquacious, or with a dialect so extensive. I take
great pleasure in going to some spot where they
are abundant, and sitting quietly to listen to them ;
for they are holding a perpetual discussion all night
long, which the presence of a human being will not
interrupt.

At night, when the vizcachas are all out feeding,
in places where they are very abundant (and in some
districts they literally swarm) any very loud and
sudden sound, as the report of a gun, or a clap of
unexpected thunder, will produce a most extraordi-
nary effect. No sooner has the report broken on
the stillness of night than a perfect storm of cries
bursts forth over the surrounding country. After
eight or nine seconds there is in the storm a
momentary lull or pause; and then it breaks forth
again, apparently louder than before. There is so
much difference in the tones of different animals
that the cries of individuais close at band may bo
308 The Naturalist in La Plata.

distinguished amidst the roar of blended voices
coming from a distance. It sounds as if thousands
and tens of thousands of them were striving to ex-
press every emotion at the highest pitch of their
voices; so that the effect is indescribable, and fills
a stranger with astonishment. Should a gun be
fired off several times, their cries become less each
time; and after the third or fourth time it produces
no effect. They have a peculiar, sharp, sudden,
“ far-darting ”? alarm-note when a dog is spied, that
is repeated by all that hear it, and produces an
instantaneous panic, sending every vizcacha flying to
his burrow.

But though they manifest such a terror of dogs
when out feeding at night (for the slowest dog can
overtake them), in the evening, when sitting upon
their mounds, they treat them with tantalizing
contempt. If the dog is a novice, the instant he
spies the animal he rushes violently at it; the
vizcacha waits the charge with imperturbable calm-
ness till his enemy is within one or two yards, and
then disappears into the burrow. After having
been foiled in this way many times, the dog resorts
to stratagem : he crouches down as if transformed
for the nonce into a Felis, and steals on with won-
derfully slow and cautious steps, his hair bristling, tail
hanging, and eyes intent on his motionless intended
victim; when within seven or eight yards he makes
a sudden rush, but invariably with the same dis-
appointing result. ‘The persistence with which the
dogs go on hoping against hope in this unprofitable
game, in which they always act the stupid part, 1s
highly amusing, and is very interesting to the
Biography of the Vizcacha. 309

naturalist ; for it shows that the native dogs on the
pampas have developed a very remarkable instinct,
and one that might be perfected by artificial selec-
tion; but dogs with the hunting habits of the cat
would, I think, be of little use to man. When it is
required to train dogs to hunt the nocturnal arma-
dillo (Dasypus villosus), then this deep-rooted (and,
it might be added, hereditary) passion for vizcachas
is excessively annoying, and it is often necessary to
administer hundreds of blows and rebukes before a
dog is induced to track an armadillo without leaving
the scent every few moments to make futile grabs
at his old enemies.

The following instance will show how little sus-
picion of man the vizcachas have. A few years ago
I went out shooting them on three consecutive
evenings. I worked ina circle, constantly revisiting
the same burrows, never going a greater distance
from home than could be walked in four or five
minutes. During the three evenings I shot sixty
vizcachas dead ; and probably as many more escaped
badly wounded into their burrows; for they are
hard to kill, and however badly wounded, if sitting
near the burrow when struck, are almost certain to
escape into it. But on the third evening I found
them no wilder, and killed about as many as on the
first. After this I gave up shooting them in dis-
gust; it was dull sport, and to exterminate or
frighten them away with a gun seemed an im-
possibility.

It is a very unusual thing to cat the vizcacha,
most people, and especially the gauchos, having a
silly unaccountable prejudice against their flesh. I
310 The Naturalist in La Plata.

lave found it very good, and while engaged writing
this chapter have dined on it served up in various
ways. The young animals are rather insipid, the
old males tough, but the mature females are excel-
lent—the flesh being tender, exceedingly white,
fragrant to the nostrils, and with a very delicate
game-flavour.

Within the last ten years so muck new land has
been brought under cultivation that farmers have
been compelled to destroy incredible numbers of
vizcachas: many large ‘“estancieros”’ (cattle-
breeders) have followed the example set by the
grain-growers, and have had them exterminated
on their estates. Now all that Azara, on hearsay,
tells about the vizcachas perishing in their burrows,
when these are covered up, but that they can sup-
port life thus buried for a period of ten or twelve
days, and that during that time animals will
come from other villages and disinter them, unless
frightened off with dogs, is strictly true. Country
workmen are so well acquainted with these facts
that they frequently undertake to destroy all the
vizcacheras on an estate for so paltry a sum as ten-
pence in English money for each one, and yet will
make double the money at this work than they can
at any other. By day they partly open up, then
cover up the burrows with a great quantity of
earth, and by night go round with dogs to drive
away tne vizcachas from the still open burrows
that come to dig out their buried friends. After all
the vizcacheras on an estate have been thus served,
the workmen are usually bound by previous agree-
ment to keep guard over them for a space of eight
Biography of the Viecacha. 311

or ten days before they receive their hire: for the
animals covered up are then supposed to be all dead.
Some of these men I have talked with have assured
me that living vizcachas have been found after
fourteen days—a proof of their great endurance.
There is nothing strange, I think, in the mere fact
of the vizcacha being unable to work his way out
when thus buried alive; for, for all I know to the
contrary, other species may, when their burrows
are well covered up, perish in the same manner ;
but it certainly is remarkable that other vizcachas
should come from a distance to dig out those that
are buried alive. In this good office they are ex-
ceedingly zealous; and I have frequently surprised
them after sunrise, at a considerable distance from
their own burrows, diligently scratching at those
that had been covered up. The vizcachas are fond
of each other’s society, and live peaceably together ;
but their’ goodwill is not restricted to the members
of their own little community; it extends to the
whole species, so that as soon as night comes many
animals leave their own and go to visit the adjacent
villages. If one approaches a vizcachera at night,
usually some of the vizcachas on it scamper off to
distant burrows: these are neighbours merely come
to pay a friendly visit. This intercourse is so
frequent that little straight paths are formed from
one vizcachera to another. The extreme attach-
ment between members of different communities
imakes it appear less strange that they should assist
each other : either the desire to see, as usual, their
buried neighbours becomes intense enough to impel
them to work their way to them; or cries of
312 The Naturalist in La Plata.

distress from the prisoners reach and incite them
to attempt their deliverance. Many social species
are thus powerfully affected by cries of distress
from one of their fellows ; and some will attempt a
rescue in the face of great danger—the weasel and
the peccary for example.

Mild and sociable as the vizcachas are towards
each other, each one is exceedingly jealous of any
intrusion into his particular burrow, and indeed
always resents such a breach of discipline with the
utmost fury. Several individuals may reside in the
compartments of the same burrow; but beyond
themselves not even their next-door neighbour is
permitted to enter; their hospitality ends where it
begins, at the entrance. It is difficult to compel a
vizcacha to enter a burrow not his own; even when
hotly pursued by dogs they often refuse to do so.
When driven into one, the instant their enemies
retire a little space they rush out of it, as if they
thought the hiding-place but little less dangerous
than the open plain. I have frequently seen viz-
cachas, chased into the wrong burrows, summarily
ejected by those inside: and sometimes they make
their escape only after being well bitten for their
offence.

I have now stated the most interesting facts I
have collected concerning the vizeacha: when others
rewrite its history they doubtless will, according to
the opportunities of observation they enjoy, be able
to make some additions to it, but probably none of
great consequence. I have observed this species
in Patagonia and Buenos Ayres only; and as I have
found that its habits are considerably modified by
Biography of the Vizcacha, 313

circumstances in the different localities where I
have met with it, I am sure that other variations
will occur in the more distant regions, where the
conditions vary.

The most remarkable thing to be said about
the vizcacha is, that although regarded by Mr.
Waterhouse, and others who have studied its
affinities, as one of the lowest of the rodents,
exhibiting strong Marsupial characters, the living
animal appears to be more intelligent than other
rodents, not of South America only, but also of those
of a higher type in other continents. A parallel
case is, perhaps, to be found in the hairy armadillo,
an extremely versatile and intelligent animal,
although only an edentate. And among birds the
ypecaha—a large La Plata rail—might also be men-
tioned as an example of what ought not to be; for
it is a bold and intelligent bird, more than a match
for the fowl, both in courage and in cunning; and
yet it is one of the family which Professor Parker—
from the point of view of the anatomist—charac-
terizes as a “‘ feeble-minded, cowardly group.”
CHAPTER XXI.
TG DYING HUANACO.

Lest any one should misread the title to this chapter,
I hasten to say that the huanaco, or guanaco as itis
often spelt, is not a perishing species ; nor, as things
are, is it likely to perish soon, despite the fact that
civilized men, Britons especially, are now enthusi-
astically engaged in the extermination of all the
nobler mammalians :—a very glorious crusade, the
triumphant conclusion of which will doubtless be
witnessed by the succeeding generation, more
favoured in this respect than ours. The huanaco,
happily for it, exists in a barren, desolate region,
in its greatest part waterless and uninhabitable to
human beings; and the chapter-heading refers to a
singular instinct of the dying animals, in very many
cases allowed, by the exceptional conditions in which
they are placed, to die naturally.

And first, a few words about its place in nature
and general habits. The huanaco is a small camel
—small, that is, compared with its existing relation
—without a hump, and, unlike the camel of the
Old World, non-specialized; doubtless it is a very
ancient animal on the earth, and for all we know to
the contrary, may have existed contemporaneously
with some of the earliest known representatives of the
The Dying [Tuanaco. 315

camel type, whose remains occur in the lower and
upper miocene deposits—Poébrotherium, Protolabis,
Procamelus, Pliauchenia, and Macrauchenia. It
ranges from Tierra del Fuego and the adjacent is-
lands, northwards over the whole of Patagonia, and
along the Andes into Peru and Bolivia. On the great
mountain chain it is both a wild and a domestic
animal, since the llama, the beast of burden of the
ancient Peruvians, is no doubt only a variety: but
as man’s slave it has changed so greatly from the
original form that some naturalists have regarded
the llama as a distinct specics, which, like the camel
of the Hast, exists only in a domestic state. It has
had time enough to vary, as it is more than probable
that the tamed and useful animal was inherited by
the children of the sun from races and nations that
came before them : and how far back Andean civi-
lization extends may be inferred from the belief
expressed by the famous American archeologist,
Squiers, that the ruined city of Tiahuanaco, in the
vicinity of Lake Titicaca, is as old as Thebes and
the Pyramids.

It is, however, with the wild animal, the huanaco,
that I am concerned. A full-grown male measures
seven to eight feet in length, and four feet high
to the shoulder; it is well clothed in a coat of
thick woolly hair, of a pale reddish colour, longest
and palest on the under parts. In appearance it is
very unlike the camel, in spite of the long legs and
neck ; in its finely-shaped head and long ears, and
its proud and graceful carriage, it resembles an
antelope rather than its huge and, from an zsthetic
point of view, deformed Asiatic relation. In habits
316 The Naturalist in La Plata.

it is gregarious, and is usually seen in small herds,
but herds numbering several hundreds or even a
thousand are occasionally met with on the stony,
desolate plateaus of Southern Patagonia; but the
huanaco is able to thrive and grow fat where almost
any other herbivore would starve. While the herd
feeds one animal acts as sentinel, stationed on the
hillside, and on the appearance of danger utters a
shrill neigh of alarm, and instantly all take to flight.
But although excessively shy and wary they are
also very inquisitive, and have enough intelligence
to know that a single horseman can do them no
harm, for they will not only approach to look closely
at him, but will sometimes follow him for miles.
They are also excitable, and at times indulge in
strange freaks. Darwin writes :—“ On the mountains
of Tierra del Fuego I have more than once seen
a huanaco, on being approached, not only neigh
and squeal, but prance and leap about in a most
ridiculous manner, apparently in defiance as a
challenge.” And Captain Ming relates that while
sailing into Port Desire he witnessed a chase of a
huanaco after a fox, both animals evidently going
at their greatest speed, so that they soon passed
out of sight. I have known some tame huanacos,
and in that state they make amusing intelligent
pets, fond of being caressed, but often so frolicsome
and mischievous as to be a nuisance to their master.

It is well known that at the southern extremity
of Patagonia the huanacos have a dying place, a
spot to which all individuals inhabiting the surround-
ing plains repair at the approach of death to deposit
their bones. Darwin and Fitzroy first recorded
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sentinel Huanaca,
The Dying Huanaco. S17

this strange instinct in their personal narratives,
and their observations have since been fully con-
firmed by others. The best known of these dying
or burial-places are on the banks of the Santa Cruz
and Gallegos rivers, where the river valleys are
covered with dense primeval thickets of bushes and
trees of stunted growth; there the ground is covered
with the bones of countless dead generations.
“The animals,” says Darwin, “ in most cases must
have crawled, before dying, beneath and among the
bushes.” A strange instinct in a creature so pre-
eminently social in its habits; a dweller all its life
long on the open, barren plateaus and mountain
sides! What a subject for a painter! The grey
wilderness of dwarf thorn trees, aged and grotesque
and scanty-leaved, nourished for a thousand years
on the bones that whiten the stony ground at their
roots; the interior lit faintly with the rays of the
departing sun, chill and grey, and silent and
motionless—the huanacos’ Golgotha. In the long
centuries, stretching back into a dim immeasurable
past, so many of this race have journeyed hither
from the mountain and the plain to suffer the
sharp pang of death, that, to the imagination,
something of it all seems to have passed into that
hushed and mournful nature. And now one more,
the latest pilgrim, has come, all his little strength
spent in his struggle to penetrate the close thicket ;
looking old and gaunt and ghostly in the twilight ;
with long ragged hair; staring into the gloom out of
death-dimmed sunken eyes. England has one artist
who might show it to us on canvas, who would
be able to catch the feeling of such a scene—of
318 The Naturalist in La Plata.

that mysterious, passionless tragedy of nature—I
refer to J. M. Swan, the painter of the “Prodigal
Son” and the “Lioness Defending her Oubs.”’

To his account of the animal’s dying place and
instinct, Darwin adds: “I do not at all understand
the reason of this, but I may observe that the
wounded huanacos at the Santa Cruz invariably
walked towards the river.”

It would, no doubt, be rash to affirm of any
instinct that it is absolutely unique; but, putting
aside some doubtful reports about a custom of the
Asiatic elephant, which may have originated in
the account of Sindbad the Sailor’s discovery of
an elephant’s burial place, we have no knowledge
of an instinct similar to that of the huanaco in any
other animal. So far as we know, it stands alone
and apart, with nothing in the actions of other
species leading up, or suggesting any family like-
ness to it. But what chiefly attracts the mind to
it is its strangeness. It looks, in fact, less like an
instinct of one of the inferior creatures than the
superstitious observance of human beings, who
have knowledge of death, and believe in a continued
existence after dissolution; of a tribe that in past
times had conceived the idea that the liberated
spirit is only able to find its way to its future abode
by starting at death from the ancient dying-place
of the tribe or family, and thence moving westward,
or skyward, or underground, over the well-worn
immemorial track, invisible to material eyes.

But, although alone among animal instincts in its
strange and useless purpose—for it is as absolutely
useless tothe species or race as to the dying individual
The Dying Huanaco. 319

—it is not the only useless instinct we know of:
there are many others, both simple and complex ;
and of such instincts we believe, with good reason,
that they once played an important part in the life
of the species, and were only rendered useless by
changes in the condition of life, or in the organism,
or in both. In other words, when the special
conditions that gave them value no longer existed,
the correlated and perfect instinct was not, in these
cases, eradicated, but remained in abeyance and
still capable of being called into activity by a new
and false stimulus simulating the old and true.
Viewed in this way, the huanaco’s instinct might
be regarded as something remaining to the animal
from a remote past, not altogether unaffected by
time perhaps; and like some ceremonial usage among
men that has long ceased to have any significance,
or like a fragment of ancient history, or a tradition,
which in the course of time has received some new
and false interpretation. The false interpretation,
to continue the metaphor, is, in this case, that the
purpose of the animal in going to a certain spot, to
which it has probably never previously resorted, is
to die there. A false interpretation, because, in
the first place, it is incredible that an instinct of no
advantage to the species in its struggle for existence
and predominance should arise and become per-
manent; and, in the second place, it is equally
incredible that it could ever have been to the
advantage of the species or race to have a dying
place. We must, then, suppose that there is in
the sensations preceding death, when death comes
slowly, some resemblance to the sensations experi-
320 The Naturalist in La Plata.

enced by the animal at a period when its curious
instinct first took form and crystallized; these
would be painful sensations that threatened life ;
and freedom from them, and safety to the animal,
would only exist in a certain well-remembered spot.
Further, we might assume that it was at first only
the memory of a few individuals that caused the
animals to seek the place of safety; that a habit
was thus formed; that in time this traditional habit
became instinctive, so that the animals, old and
young, made their way unerringly to the place of
refuge whenever the old danger returned. And
such an instinct, slowly matured and made perfect
to enable this animal to escape extinction during
periods of great danger to mammalian life, lasting
hundreds or even thousands of years, and destruc-
tive of numberless other species less hardy and
adaptive than the generalized huanaco, might well
continue to exist, to be occasionally called into life
by a false stimulus, for many centuries after it had
ceased to be of any advantage.

Once we accept this explanation as probable—
namely, that the huanaco, in withdrawing from the
herd to drop down and die in the ancient dying
ground, is in reality only seeking an historically
remembered place of refuge, and not of death—the
action of the animal loses much of its mysterious
character ; we come on to firm ground, and find
that we are no longer considering an instinct abso-
lutely unique, with no action or instinct in any
other animal leading up or suggesting any family
likeness to it, as I said before. We find, in fact,
that there is at least one very important and very
The Dying Huanaco, 301

well-known instinct in another class of creatures,
which has a strong resemblance to that of the
huanaco, as I have interpreted it, and which may
even serve to throw a side light on the origin of the
huanaco’s instinct. I refer to a habit of some ophi-
dians, in temperate and cold countries, of returning
annually to hybernate in the same den.

A typical instance is that of the rattlesnake in
the colder parts of North America. On the ap-
proach of winter these reptiles go into hiding, and
it has been observed that in some districts a very
large number of individuals, hundreds, and even
thousands, will repair from the surrounding country
to the ancestral den. Here the serpents gather in
a mass to remain in a wholly or semi-torpid condi-
tion until the return of spring brings them out again,
to scatter abroad to their usual summer haunts.
Clearly in this case the knowledge of the hyberna-
ting den is not merely traditional—that is, handed
down from generation to generation, through the
young each year following the adults, and so form-
ing the habit of repairing at certain seasons to a
certain place; for the young serpent soon abandons
its parent to lead an independent life; and on the
approach of cold weather the hybernating den may
be along distance away, ten or twenty, or even
thirty miles from the spot in which it was born.
The annual return to the hybernating den is then a
fixed unalterable instinct, like the autumnal migra-
tion of some birds to a warmer latitude. It is
doubtless favourable to the serpents to hybernate in
large numbers massed together; and the habit of
resorting annually to the same spot once formed,
322 The Naturalist in La Plata.

we can imagine that the individuals—perhaps a
single couple in the first place—frequenting some
very deep, dry, and well-sheltered cavern, safe from
enemies, would have a great advantage over others
of their race; that they would be stronger and
increase more, and spread during the summer
months further and further from the cavern on all
sides; and that the further afield they went the
more would the instinct be perfected; since all
the young serpents that did not have the in-
stinct of returning unerringly to the ances-
tral refuge, and that, like the outsiders of their
race, to put it in that way, merely crept into the
first hole they found on the approach of the cold
season, would be more liable to destruction. Pro-
bably most snakes get killed long before a natural
decline sets in; to say that not one in a thousand
dies of old age would probably be no exaggeration ;
but if they were as safe from enemies and accidents
as some less prolific and more highly-organized
animals, so that many would reach the natural term
of life, and death came slowly, we can imagine that
in such a heat-loving creature the failure of the
vital powers would simulate the sensations caused
by a falling temperature, and cause the old or sick
serpent, even in midsummer, to creep instinctively
away to the ancient refuge, where many a long
life-killing frost had been safely tided over in the
past.

The huanaco has never been a hybernating ani-
mal; but we must assume that, like the crotalus of
the north, he had formed ahabit of congregating
with his fellows at certain seasons at the same spot ;
The Dying Huanaco. 323

further, that these were seasons of suffering to the
animal—the suffering, or discomfort and danger,
having in the first place given rise to the habit.
Assuming again that the habit had existed so long
as to become, like that of the reptile, a fixed, immu-
table instinct, a hereditary knowledge, so that the
young huanacos, untaught by the adults, would go
alone and unerringly to the meeting-place from any
distance, it is but an easy step to the belief, that
after the conditions had changed, and the refuges
were no longer needed, this instinctive knowledge
would still exist in them, and that they would take
the old road when stimulated by the pain of a
wound; or the miserable sensations experienced in
disease ; or during the decay of the life-energy, when
the senses grow dim, and the breath fails, and the
blood is thin and cold.

I presume that most persons who have observed
animals a great deal have met with cases in which
the animal has acted automatically, or instinctively,
when the stimulus has been a false one. I will
relate one such case, observed by myself, and which
strikes me as being apposite to the question I am
considering. It must be premised that this is an
instance of an acquired habit; but this does not
affect my argument, since I have all along assumed
that the huanaco—a highly sagacious species in the
highest class of vertebrates—first acquired a habit
from experience of seeking a remembered refuge,
and that such habit was the parent, as it were, or
the first clay model, of the perfect and indestructible
instinct that was to be.

It is not an uncommon thing in the Argentine
324 The Naturalist tn La Plata.

pampas—I have on two occasions witnessed it my-
self—for a riding-horse to come home, or to the
gate of his owner’s house, to die. Iam speaking of
riding-horses that are never doctored, nor treated
mercifully ; that look on their master as an enemy
rather than a friend; horses that live out in the
open, and have to be hunted to the corral or enclo-
sure, or roughly captured with a lasso as they run,
when their services are required. I retain a very vivid
recollection of the first occasion of witnessing an
action of this kind in a horse, although I was only a
boy at the time. On going out one summer evening
I saw one of the horses of the establishment stand-
ing unsaddled and unbridled leaning his head over
the gate. Going to the spot, I stroked his nose, and
then, turning to an old native who happened to be
near, asked him what could be the meaning of such
athing. ‘TI think he is going to die,” he answered ;
“horses often come to the house to die.” And next
morning the poor beast was found lying dead not
twenty yards from the gate; although he had not
appeared ill when I stroked his nose on the previous
evening ; but when I saw him lying there dead, and
remembered the old native’s words, it seemed to
me as marvellous and inexplicable that a horse
should act in that way, as if some wild creature—a
rhea, a fawn, or dolichotes—had come to exhale his
last breath at the gates of his enemy and constant
persecutor, man.

I now believe that the sensations of sickness and
approaching death in the riding-horse of the pam-
pas resemble or similate the pains, so often expe-
rienced, of hunger, thirst and fatigue combined,
The Dying Huanaco. 325

together with the oppressive sensations caused by
the ponderous native saddle, or recado, with its
huge surcingle of raw hide drawn up so tightly as
to hinder free respiration. The suffering animal
remembers how at the last relief invariably came,
when the twelve or fifteen hours’ torture were over,
the toil and the want, and when the great iron
bridle and ponderous gear were removed, and he had
freedom and food and drink and rest. At the gate
or at the door of his master’s house, the sudden
relief had always come to him; and there does
he sometimes go in his sickness, his fear over-
mastered by his suffering, to find it again.
Discussing this question with a friend, who has
a subtle mind and great experience of the horse in
semi-barbarous countries, and of many other ani-
mals, wild and tame, in many regions of the globe,
he put forward a different explanation of the action
of the horse in coming home to die, which he thinks
simpler and more probable than mine. It is, that
a dying or ailing animal instinctively withdraws
itself from its fellows—an action of self-preserva-
tion in the individual in opposition to the well-
known instincts of the healthy animals, which
impels the whole herd to turn upon and persecute
the sickly member, thus destroying its chances of
recovery. The desire of the suffering animal is not
only to leave its fellows, but to get to some solitary
place where they cannot follow, or would never find
him, to escape at once from a great and pressing
danger. But on the pastoral pampas, where horses
are so numerous that on that level, treeless area they
are always and everywhere visible, no hiding-place
326 The Naturalist in La Plata.

is discoverable. In such a case, the animal, goaded
by its instinctive fear, turns to the one spot that
horses avoid ; and although that spot has hitherto
been fearful to him, the old fear is forgotten in the
present and far more vivid one; the vicinity of his
master’s house represents a solitary place to him,
and he seeks it, just as the stricken deer seeks the
interior of some close forest, oblivious for the time,
in its anxiety to escape from the herd, of the dangers
lurking in it, and which he formerly avoided.

I have not set this explanation down merely
because it does credit to my friend’s ingenuity, but
because it strikes me that it is the only alternative
explanation that can be given of the animal’s action
in coming home to die. Another fact concerning
the ill-tamed and barbarously treated horses of the
pampas, which, to my mind, strengthens the view I
have taken, remains to be mentioned. It is not an
uncommon thing for one of these horses, after
escaping, saddled and bridled, and wandering about
for anight or night and day on the plains, to return
of its own accord to the house. It is clear that in a
case of this kind the animal comes home to seek
relief. I have known one horse that always had to
be hunted like a wild animal to be caught, and that
invariably after being saddled tried to break loose,
to return in this way to the gate after wandering
about, saddled and bridled, for over twenty hours in
uncomfortable freedom.

The action of the riding-horse returning to a
master he is accustomed to fly from, as from an
enemy, to be released of saddle and bridle, is, no
doubt more intelligent than that of the dying horse
The Dying Fluanaco. 409

coming home to be relieved from his sufferings, but
the motive is the same in both cases; at the gate
the only pain the animal has ever experienced has
invariably begun, and there it has ended, and when
the spur of some new pain afflicts him—new and yet
like the old—it is to the well-remembered hated
gate that it urges him.

To return to the huanaco. After tracing the
dying instinct back to its hypothetical origin—
namely, a habit acquired by the anima] in some
past period of seeking refuge from some kind of pain
and danger at a certain spot, it is only natural to
speculate a little further as to the nature of that
danger and of the conditions the animal existed in.

If the huanaco is as old on the earth as its
antique generalized form have led naturalists to
suppose, we can well believe that it has survived
not only a great many lost mammalian types, but
many changes in the conditions of its life. Let us
then imagine that at some remote period a change
took place in the climate of Patagonia, and that it
became colder and colder, owing to some cause af-
fecting only that portion of the antarctic region ;
such a cause, for instance, as a great accumulation
of icebergs on the northern shores of the antarctic
continent, extending century by century until a large
portion of the now open sea became blocked up with
solid ice. If the change was gradual and the snow
became deeper each winter and lasted longer, an
intelligent, gregarious, and exceedingly hardy and
active animal like the huanaco, able to exist on the
driest woody fibres, would stand the best chance of
maintaining its existence in such altered conditions,
328 The Naturalist in La Plata,

and would form new habits to meet the new danger,
One would be that at the approach of a period of
deep snow and deadly cold, all the herds frequent-
ing one place would gather together at the most
favourable spots in the river valleys, where the vege-
tation is dense and some food could be had while the
surrounding country continued covered with deep
snow. They would, in fact, make choice of exactly
such localities as are now used for dying places.
There they would be sheltered from the cutting
winds, the twigs and bark would supply them with
food, the warmth from a great many individuals
massed together would serve to keep the snow par-
tially melted under foot, and would prevent their
being smothered, while the stiff and closely inter-
laced branches would keep a roof of snow above
them, and thus protected they would keep alive
until the return of mild weather released them. In
the course of many generations all weakly animals,
and all in which the habit of seeking the refuge at
the proper time was weak or uncertain in its action
would perish, but their loss would be an advantage
to the survivors.

It is worthy of remark that it is only at the
southern extremity of Patagonia that the huanacos
have dying places. In Northern Patagonia, and on
the Chilian and Peruvian Andes no such instinct
has been observed.
CHAPTER XXII.

THE STRANGE INSTINCTS OF CATTLE.

My purpose in this paper is to discuss a group
of curious and useless emotional instincts of
social animals, which have not yet been properly
explained. Excepting two of the number, placed
first and last in the list, they are not related in
their origin; consequently they are here grouped
together arbitrarily, only for the reason that we
are very familiar with them on account of their
survival in our domestic animals, and because they
are, as I have said, useless; also because they re-
semble each other, among the passions and ac-
tions of the lower animals, in their effect on our
minds. This is in all cases unpleasant, and some-
times exceedingly painful, as when species that
rank next to ourselves in their developed intelli-
gence and organized societies, such as elephants,
monkeys, dogs, and cattle, are seen under the
domination of impulses, in some cases resembling
insanity, and in others simulating the darkest
passions of man.

These instincts are :—

(1) The excitement caused by the smell of blood,
noticeable in horses and cattle among our domestic
animals, and varying greatly m degree, from an
330 The Naturalist in La Plata.

emotion so slight as to be scarcely perceptible tu
the greatest extremes of rage or terror.

(2) The angry excitement roused in some animals
when a scarlet or bright-red cloth is shown to
them. Sc well known is this apparently insane
instinct in our cattle that it has given rise to
a proverb and metaphor familiar in a variety of
forms to everyone.

(8) The persecution of a sick or weakly animal
by its companions.

(4) The sudden deadly fury that seizes on the
herd or family at the sight of a companion in ex-
treme distress. Herbivorous mammals at such
times will trample and gore the distressed one to
death. In the case of wolves, and other savage-
tempered carnivorous species, the distressed fellow
is frequently torn to pieces and devoured on the
spot.

To take the first two together. When we con-
sider that blood is red; that the smell of it is, or
may be, or has been, associated with that vivid
hue in the animal’s mind; that blood, seen and
smelt is, or has been, associated with the sight of
wounds and with cries of pain and rage or terror
from the wounded or captive animal, there appears
at first sight to be some reason for connecting these
two instinctive passions as having the same origin
—namely, terror and rage caused by the sight of
a member of the herd struck down and bleeding,
or struggling for life in the grasp of an enemy. I
do not mean to say that such an image is actually
present in the animal’s mind, but that the inherited
or instinctive passion is one in kind and in its work-
Lhe Strange Instincts of Cattle. 491

ing with the passion of the animal when experience
and reason were its guides.

But the more I consider the point the more am I
inclined to regard these two instincts as separate
in their origin, although I retain the belief that
cattle and horses and several wild animals are
violently excited by the smell of blood for the
reason just given—namely, their inherited memory
associates the smell of blood with the presence
among them of some powerful enemy that threatens
their life. To this point I shall return when deal-
ing with the last and most painful of the instincts
I am considering.

The following incident will show how violently
this blood passion sometimes affects cattle, when
they are permitted to exist in a half-wild condition,
as on the pampas. I was out with my gun one day,
a few miles from home, when I came across a patch
on the ground where the grass was pressed or
trodden down and stained with blood. I con-
cluded that some thievish gauchos had slaughtered
a fat cow there on the previous night, and, to
avoid detection, had somehow managed to carry
the whole of it away on their horses. As I walked
on, a herd of cattle, numbering about three hun-
dred, appeared moving slowly on towards a small
stream a mile away; they were travelling in a thin
long line, and would pass the blood-stained spot
at a distance of seven to eight hundred yards,
but the wind from it would blow across their
track. When the tainted wind struck the leaders of
the herd they instantly stood still, raising their

heads, then broke out into loud excited bellowings ;
Zz
s

332 The Naturalist in La Plata,

and finally turning they started off at a fast trot,
following up the scent in a straight line, until they
arrived at the place where one of their kind had
met its death. The contagion spread, and before
long all the cattle were congregated on the fatal
spot, and began moving round in a dense mass,
bellowing continually.

It may be remarked here that the animal has
a peculiar language on occasions like this; it
emits a succession of short bellowing cries, like
excited exclamations, followed by a very loud
cry, alternately sinking into a hoarse murmur, and
rising to a kind of scream that grates harshly on
the sense. Of the ordinary ‘‘cow-music”’ I ama
great admirer, and take as much pleasure in it as
in the cries and melody of birds and the sound of
the wind in trees; but this performance of cattle
excited by the smell of blood is most distressing to
hear.

The animals that had forced their way into
the centre of the mass to the spot where the blood
was, pawed the earth, and dug it up with their
horns, and trampled each other down in their frantic
excitement. It was terrible to see and hear them.
The action of those on the border of the living mass
in perpetually moving round in a circle with dolorous
bellowings, was like that of the women in an Indian
village when a warrior dies, and all night they
shriek and how] with simulated grief, going round
and round the dead man’s hut in an endless
procession.

The “‘bulland red rag’ instinct, as it may be
called, comes next in ordcr.
The Strange Instincts of Cattle. a9

It is a familiar fact that brightness in itself
powerfully attracts most if not all animals. The
higher mammalians are affected in the same way as
birds and insects, although not in the same degree.
This fact partly explains the rage of the bull. A
scarlet flag fluttering in the wind or lying on the
grass attracts his attention powerfully, as it does
that of other animals; but though curious about
the nature of the bright object, it does not anger
him. His anger is excited—and this is the whole
secret of the matter—when the colour is flaunted by
aman; when it forces him to fix his attention on
a man, ie. an animal of another species that rules
or drives him, and that he fears, but with only a
slight fear, which may at any moment be overcome
by his naturally bold aggressive disposition. Not
only does the vivid colour compel him to fix his
attention on the being that habitually interferes
‘with his liberty, and is consequently regarded
with unfriendly eyes, butit also produces the illusion
on his mind that the man is near him, that he is
approaching him in an aggressive manner: it is an
insult, a challenge, which, being of so explosive
a temper, he is not slow to accept.

On the pampas I was once standing with some
gauchos at the gate of a corral into which a herd of
half-wild cattle had just been driven. One of the
men, to show his courage and agility, got off his
horse and boldly placed himself in the centre of
the open gate. His action attracted the attention
of one of the nearest cows, and lowcring her horns
she began watching him in a threatening manner.
He then suddenly displayed the scarlet lining of his
334 The Naturalist in La Plata.

poncho, and instantly she charged him furiously:
with a quick movement to one side he escaped
her horns, and after we had driven her back, re-
sumed his former position and challenged her again
in the same way. The experiment was repeated
not less than half a dozen times, and always with
the same result. The cattle were all in a savage
temper, and would have instantly charged him on
his placing himself before them on foot without the
display of scarlet cloth, but their fear of the mounted
men, standing with lassos in their hand on either
side of him, kept them in check. But whenever
the attention of any one individual among them was
forcibly drawn to him by the display of vivid colour,
and fixed on him alone, the presence of the horse-
men was forgotten and fear was swallowed by rage.

It is a fact, I think, that most animals that
exhibit angry excitement when a scarlet rag is
flourished aggressively at them, are easily excited to
anger at alltimes. Domestic geese and turkeys may
be mentioned among birds: they do not fly ata
grown person, but they will often fly at a child that
challenges them in this way ; and it is a fact that
they do not at any time feara child very much and
will sometimes attack him without being challenged.
I think that the probability of the view I have
taken is increased by another fact—namely, that
the sudden display of scarlet colour sometimes
affects timid animals with an extreme fear, just as,
on the other hand, it excites those that are bold
and aggressive to anger. Domestic sheep, forinstance,
that vary greatly in disposition in different races
or breeds, and even in different individuals, may be
Lhe Strange Instincts of Cattle, 255

affected in the two opposite ways, some exhibiting
extreme terror and others only anger at a sudden
display of scarlet colour by the shepherd or herder.

The persecution of a sick animal by its companions
comes next under consideration.

It will have been remarked, with surprise by some
readers, no doubt, that I have set down as two
different instincts this persecution of a sick or weakly
individual by its fellows, and the sudden deadly
rage that sometimes impels the herd to turn upon
and destroy a wounded or distressed companion.
It is usual for writers on the instincts of animals to
speak of them as one: and I presume that they
regard this sudden deadly rage of several individuals
against a companion as merely an extreme form of
the common persecuting instinct or impulse. They
are not really one, but are as distinct in origin and
character as it is possible for any two instincts to
be. The violent and fatal impulse starts simul-
taneously into life and action, and is contagious,
affecting all the members of the herd like a sudden
madness. The other is neither violent nor con-
tagious: the persecution is intermittent; it is often
confined to one or to a very few members of the
herd, and seldom joined in by the chief member, the
leader or head to whom all the others give way.

Concerning this head of the herd, or flock, or
pack, it is necessary to say something more. Some
gregarious animals, particularly birds, live together
in the most perfect peace and amity ; and here no
leader is required, because in their long association
together as a species in flocks, they have attained to
a oneness of mind, so to speak, which causes them
336 The Naturalist in La Plata.

to move or rest, and to act at all times harmoniously
together, as if controlled and guided by an extrane-
ous force. I may mention that the kindly instinct
in animals, which is almost universal between male
and female in the vertebrates, is most apparent in
these harmoniously acting birds. Thus, in La
Plata, I have remarked, in more than one species,
that a lame or sick individual, unable to keep pace
with the flock and find its food, has not only been
waited for, but in some cases some of the flock
have constantly attended it, keeping close to it
both when flying and on the ground; and, I have
no doubt, feeding it just as they would have fed
their young.

Naturally among such kinds no one member is of
more consideration than another. But among mam-
mals such equality and harmonyis rare. The instinct
of one and all is to lord it over the others, with the
result that one more powerful or domineering gets
the mastery, to keep it thereafter as long as he can.
The lower animals are, in this respect, very much
like us; and in all kinds that are at all fierce-
tempered the mastery of one over all, and ofa few
under him over the others, is most salutary;
indeed, it is inconceivable that they should be able
to exist together under any other system.

On cattle-breeding establishments on the pampas,
where it is usual to keep a large number of fierce-
tempered dogs, I have observed these animals a
great deai, and presume that they are very much
like feral dogs and wolves in their habits. Their
quarrels are incessant; but when a fight begins
the head of the pack as a rule rushes to the
The Strange Instincts of Cattle. 337

spot, whereupon the fighters separate and march
off in different directions, or else cast themselves
down and deprecate their tyrant’s wrath with
abject gestures and whines. If the combatants are
both strong and have worked themselves into a
mad rage before their head puts in an appearance,
it may go hard with him: they know him no longer,
and all he can do is to join in the fray; then, if the
fighters turn on him, he may be so injured that his
power is gone, and the next best dog in the pack
takes his place. The hottest contests are always
between dogs that are well matched; neither will
give place to the other, and so they fight it out;
but from the foremost in strength and power down
to the weakest there isa gradation of authority;
each one knows just how far he can go, which com-
panion he can bully when he is ina bad temper or
wishes to assert himself, and to which he must
humbly yield in his turn. In such a state
the weakest one must always yield to all the
others, and cast himself down, seeming to call
himself a slave and worshipper of any other
member of the pack that chooses to snarl at him, or
command him to give up his bone with a good
grace.

This masterful or domineering temper, so common
among social mammals, is the cause of the persecu-
tion of the sick and weakly. When an animal
begins to ail he can no longer hold his own; he
ceases to resent the occasional ill-natured attacks
made ov him; his non-combative condition is
quickly discovered, and he at once drops down toa
place below the lowest; it is common knowledge
338 The Naturalist in La Plata.

in the herd that he may be buffeted with impunity by
all, even by those that have hitherto suffered buffets
but have given none. But judging from my own
observation, this persecution is not, as a rule,
severe, and is seldom fatal.

It is often the case that a sick or injured animal
withdraws and hides himself from the herd; the
instinct of the “ stricken deer” this might be called.
But I do not think that we need assume that the
ailing individual goes away to escape the danger of
being ill-used by his companions. He is sick and
drooping and consequently unfit to be with the
healthy and vigorous; that is the simplest and
probably the true explanation of his action ; although
in some cases he might be driven from them by
persistent rough usage. However peaceably gre-
garious mammals may live together, and however
fond of each other’s company they may be, they do
not, as a rule, treat each other gently. Further-
more, their games are exceedingly rough and require
that they shall be ina vigorous state of health to
escape injury. Horned animals have no buttons to
the sharp weapons they prod and strike each other
with in a sportive spirit. I have often witnessed
the games of wild and half-wild horses with astonish-
ment; for it seemed that broken bones must result
from the sounding kicks they freely bestowed on one
another. This roughness itself would be a sufficient
cause for the action of the individual, sick and out
of tune and untouched by the glad contagion of the
others, in escaping from them; and to leave them
would be to its advantage (and to that of the race)
since, if not fatally injured or sick unto death, its
The Strange Instincts of Cattle. 339

chances of recovery to perfect health would be
thereby greatly increased.

It remains now to speak of that seemingly most
cruel of instincts which stands last on my list. It
is very common among gregarious animals that are
at all combative in disposition, and still survives in
our domestic cattle, although very rarely witnessed
in England. My first experience of it was just
before I had reached the age of five years. I was
not at that early period trying to find out any of
nature’s secrets, but the scene I witnessed printed
itself very vividly on my mind, so that I can recall
it as well as if my years had been five-and-twenty ;
perhaps better. It was on a summer’s evening, and
I was out by myself at some distance from the house,
playing about the high exposed roots of some old
trees ; on the other side of the trees the cattle, just
returned from pasture, were gathered on the bare
level ground. Hearing a great commotion among
them, I climbed on to one of the high exposed
roots, and, looking over, saw a cow on the ground,
apparently unable to rise, moaning and bellowing in
a distressed way, while a number of her companions
were crowding round and goring her.

What is the meaning of such an instinct ? Darwin
has but few words on the subject. ‘ Can we believe,”’
he says, in his posthumous Hssay on Instinct, “‘ when
a wounded herbivorous animal returns to its own
herd and is then attacked and gored, that this cruel
and very common instinct is of any service to the
species?” At the same time, he hints that such an
instinct might in some circumstances be useful, and
his hint has been developed into the current belief
340 The Naturalist in La Plata.

among naturalists on the subject. Here it is,in Dr.
Romanes’ words: ‘‘ We may readily imagine that the
instinct displayed by many herbivorous animals of
goring sick and wounded companions, is really of
use in countries where the presence of weak members
in a herd is a source of danger to the herd from
the prevalence of wild beasts.”” Here it is assumed
that the sick are set upon and killed, but this is
not the fact; sickness and decay from age or some
other cause are slow things, and increase imper-
ceptibly, so that the sight of a drooping member
grows familiar to the herd, as does that of a member
with some malformation, or unusual shade of colour,
or altogether white, as in the case of an albino.

Sick and weak members, as we have seen, while
subject to some ill-treatment from their companions
(only because they can beill-treated with impunity),
do not rouse the herd to a deadly animosity; the
violent and fatal attack is often as not made ona
member in perfect health and vigour and unwounded,
although, owing to some accident, in great distress,
and perhaps danger, at the moment.

The instinct is, then, not only useless but actually
detrimental ; and, this being so, the action of the
herd in destroying one of its members is not even
to be regarded as an instinct proper, but rather as
an aberration of an instinct, a blunder, into which
animals sometimes fall when excited to action in
unusual circumstances.

The first thing that: strikes us is that in these
wild abnormal moments of social animals, they are
acting in violent contradiction to the whole tenor
of their lives; that in turning against a distressed
Lhe Strange Instincts of Cattle. 341

fellow they oppose themselves to the law of their
being, to the whole body of instincts, primary and
secondary, and habits, which have made it possible
for them to exist together in communities. It is,
(think, by reflecting on the abnormal character of
such an action that we are led to a true interpre-
tation of this “ dark saying of Nature.”

Every one is familiar with Bacon’s famous pas-
sage about the dog, and the noble courage which
that animal puts on when “ maintained by a man;
who is to him in place of a God, or melior natura ;
which courage is manifestly such as that creature,
without the confidence of a better nature than its
own, could never attain.” Not so. The dog isa
social animal, and acts instinctively in concert with
his fellows; and the courage he manifests is of
the family, not the individual. In the doiestic
state the man he is accustomed to associate with and
obey stands to him in the place of the controlling
pack, and to his mind, which is canine and not
human, is the pack. A similar “ noble courage,”
greatly surpassing that exhibited on all other occa-
sions, is displayed by an infinite number of mammals
and birds of gregarious habits, when repelling the
attacks of some powerful and dangerous enemy, or
when they rush to the rescue of one of their
captive fellows. Concerning this rage and desperate
courage of social animals in the face of an enemy,
we see (1) that it is excited by the distressed cries,
or by the sight of a member of the herd or family
flying from or struggling in the clutches of an
enemy ; (2) that it affects animals when a number
of individuals are together, and is eminently con-
342 The Naturalist in La Plata.

tagious, like fear, that communicates itself, quick
as lightning, from one to another until all are in a
panic, and like the joyous emotion that impels the
members of a herd or flock to rush simultaneously
into play.

Now, it is a pretty familiar fact that animals acting
instinctively, as well as men acting intelligently,
have at times their delusions and their illusions,
and see things falsely, and are moved to action by a
false stimulus to their own disadvantage. When
the individuals of a herd or family are excited toa
sudden deadly rage by the distressed cries of one
of their fellows, or by the sight of its bleeding
wounds and the smell of its blood, or when they see
it frantically struggling on the ground, or in the
cleft of a tree or rock, as if in the clutches of a
powerful enemy, they do not turn on it to kill but
to rescue it.

In whatever way the rescuing mstinct may have
risen, whether simply through natural selection or,
as is more probable, through an intelligent habit
becoming fixed and hereditary, its effectiveness
depends altogether on the emotion of overmastering
rage excited in the animal—rage against a tangible
visible enemy, or invisible, and excited by the cries
or struggles of a suffering companion ; clearly, then,
it could not provide against the occasional rare
accidents that animals meet with, which causes them
to act precisely in the way they do when seized or
struck down by an enemy. An illusion is the result
of the emotion similar to the illusion produced by
vivid expectation in ourselves, which has caused
many aman to see in a friend and companion the
Lhe Strange Instincts of Cattle. 343

adversary he looked to see, and to slay him in his
false-seeing anger.

An illusion just as great, leading to action equally
violent, but ludicrous rather than painful to witness,
may be seen in dogs, when encouraged by a man to
the attack, and made by his cries and gestures to ex-
pect that some animal they are accustomed to hunt
is about to be unearthed or overtaken; and if,
when they are in this disposition, he cunningly
exhibits and sets them on a dummy, made perhaps
of old rags and leather and stuffed with straw, they
will seize, worry, and tear it to pieces with the
greatest fury, and without the faintest suspicion of
its true character.

That wild elephants will attack a distressed
fellow seemed astonishing to Darwin, when he
remembered the case of an elephant after escaping
from a pit helping its fellow to escape also. But it
is precisely the animals, high or low in the organic
scale, that are social, and possess the instinct of
helping each other, that will on occasions attack a
fellow in misfortune—such an attack being no more
than a blunder of the helping instinct.

Felix de Azara records a rather cruel experiment
on the temper of some tame rats confined in a cage.
The person who kept them caught the tail of one
of the animals and began sharply pinching it,
keeping his hand concealed under the cage. Its
cries of pain and struggles to free itself greatly
excited the other rats; and after rushing wildly
round for some moments they flew at their dis-
tressed companion, and fixing their teeth in its
throat quickly dispatched it. In this case if the
344 The Naturalist in La Plata.

hand that held the tail had been visible and in. the
cage, the bites would undoubtedly have been inflicted
on it; but no enemy was visible; yet the fury and
impulse to attack an enemy was present in the
animals. In such circumstances, the excitement
must be discharged—the instinct obeyed, and in
the absence of any other object of attack the illusion
is produced and it discharges itself on the struggling
companion. It is sometimes seen in dogs, when
three or four or five are near together, that if one
suddenly utters a howl or cry of pain, when no man
is near it and no cause apparent, the others run to
it, and seeing nothing, turn round and attack each
other. Here the exciting cause—the cry for help—
is not strong enough to produce the illusion which
is sometimes fatal to the suffering member; but
each dog mistakingly thinks that the others, or one
of the others, inflicted the injury, and his impulse is
to take the part of the injured animal. If the cry
for help—caused perhaps by a sudden cramp or the
prick of a thorn—is not very sharp or intense, the
other dogs will not attack, but merely look and
growl at each other in a suspicious way.

To go back to Azara’s anecdote. Why, it may
be asked—and this question has been put to me in
conversation—if killing a distressed companion is
of no advantage to the race, and if something must
be attacked—why did not these rats in this instance
attack the cage they were shut in, and bite at the
woodwork and wires? Or, in the case related by
Mr. Andrew Lang in Longman’s Magazine some
time ago, in which the members of a herd of cattle
in Scotland turned with sudden amazing fury on
The Strange Instincts of Cattle. 345

one of the cows that had got wedged between two
rocks and was struggling with distressed bellowings
to free itself—why did they not attack the prisoning
rocks instead of goring their unfortunate comrade to
death? For it is well known that animals will, on
occasions, turn angrily upon and attack inanimate
objects that cause them injury or hinder their freedom
of action. And we know that this mythic faculty—the
mind’s projection of itself into visible nature—sur-
vives in ourselves, that there are exceptional moments
in our lives when it comes back to us; no one, for
instance, would be astonished to hear that any man,
even a philosopher, had angrily kicked away or
imprecated a stool or other inanimate object against
which he had accidentally barked his shins. The
auswer is, that there is no connection between these
two things—the universal mythic faculty of the
mind, and that bold and violent instinct of social
animals of rushing to the rescue of a stricken or
distressed companion, which has a definite, a narrow,
purpose—namely, to fall upon an enemy endowed
not merely with the life and intelligence common to
all things, including rocks, trees, and waters, but
with animal form and motion.

I had intended in this place to give other in-
stances, observed in several widely-separated species,
including monkeys ; but it is not necessary, as I
consider that all the facts, however varied, are
covered by the theory I have suggested—even a fact
like the one mentioned in this chapter of cattle
bellowing and madly digging up the ground where
the blood of one of their kind had been spilt:
also such a fact as that of wild cattle and other
346 The Naturalist in La Plata.

animals caught in a trap or enclosure attacking and
destroying each other in their frenzy; and the fact
that some fierce-tempered carnivorous mammals
will devour the companion they have killed. It is
an instinct of animals like wolves and peccaries to
devour the enemy they have overcome and slain:
thus, when the jaguar captures a peccary out of a
drove, and does not quickly escape with his prize
into a tree, he is instantly attacked and slain and
then consumed, even to the skin and bones. This
is the wolf’s and the peccary’s instinct; and the
devouring of one of their own companions is an
inevitable consequence of the mistake made in the
first place of attacking and killing it. In no other
circumstances, not even when starving, do they prey
on their own species.

If the explanation I have offered should seem a
true or highly probable one, it will; I feel sure,
prove acceptable to many lovers of animals, who,
regarding this seemingly ruthless instinct, not as
an aberration but as in some vague way advantage-
ous to animals in their struggle for existence, are
yet unable to think of it without pain and horror ;
indeed, I know those who refuse to think of it at
all, who would gladly disbelieve it if they could.

It should be a relief to them to be able to look on
it no longer as something ugly and hateful, a blot
on nature, but as an illusion, a mistake, an un-
conscious crime, so to speak, that has for its motive
the noblest passion that animals know—that sub-
lime courage and daring which they exhibit in
defence of a distressed companion. This fiery spirit
in animals, which makes them forget their own
The Strange Instincts of Cattle. 347

safety, moves our hearts by its close resemblance to
one of the most highly-prized human virtues; just
as we are moved to intellectual admiration by the
wonderful migratory instinct in birds that simulates
some of the highest achievements of the mind of
man. And we know that this beautiful instinct is
also lable to mistakes—that many travellers leave
us annually never to return. Such a mistake was
undoubtedly the cause of the Jate visitation of
Pallas’ sand-grouse: owing perhaps to some un-
usual atmospheric or dynamic condition, or to
some change in the nervous system of the birds,
they deviated widely from their usual route, to
scatter in countless thousands over the whole of
Europe and perish slowly in climates not suited to
them; while others, overpassing the cold strange
continent, sped on over colder, stranger seas, to
drop at last like aerolites, quenching their lives in
the waves.

Whether because it is true, as Professor Freeman
and some others will have it, that humanity is a
purely modern virtue; or because the doctrine of
Darwin, by showing that we are related to other
forms of life, that our best feelings have their roots
low down in the temper and instincts of the social
species, has brought us nearer in spirit to the
inferior animals, it is certain that our regard for
them has grown, and is growing, and that new facts
and fresh inferences that make us think more highly
of them are increasingly welcome.

2A
SHAPTER XXITI.
HORSE AND MAN,

THERE is no mode of progression so delightful as
riding on horseback. Walking, rowing, bicycling
are pleasant exercises in their way, but the muscular
exertion and constant exercise of judgment they
call for occupy the mind partly to the exclusion of
other things; so that a long walk may sometimes
be only a long walk and nothing more. In riding
we are not conscious of exertion, and as for that
close observation and accurate discernment neces-
sary in traversing the ground with speed and safety,
it is left to the faithful servant that carries us.
Pitfalls, hiilocks, slippery places, the thousand little
inequalities of the surface that have to be measured
with infallible eye, these disturb us little. To fly
or go slowly at will, to pass unshaken over rough
and smooth alike, fording rivers without being wet,
and mounting hills without climbing, this is indeed
unmixed delight. It is the nearest approach to
bird-life we seem capable of, since all the monster
bubbies and flying fabrics that have been the sport
of winds from the days of Montgolfier downwards
have brought us no nearer to it. The aeronaut
gasping for breath above the clouds offers only a
sad spectacle of the imbecility of science and man’s
fTorse and Man. 349

shattered hopes. To the free inhabitants of air we
can only liken the mounted Arab, vanishing, hawk-
like, over the boundless desert.

In riding there is always exhilarating motion;
yet, if the scenery encountered be charming, you
are apparently sitting still, while, river-like, it flows
toward and past you, ever giving place to fresh
visions of beauty. Above all, the mind is free, as
when one lies idly on the grass gazing up into the
sky. And, speaking of myself, there is even more
than this immunity from any tax on the under-
standing such as we require in walking; the
rhythmic motion, the sensation as of flight, acting
on the brain like a stimulus. That anyone should
be able to think better lying, sitting, or standing,
than when speeding along on horseback, is to
me incomprehensible. This is doubtless due to
early training and long use; for on those great
pampas where I first saw the light and was taught
at a tender age to ride, we come to look on man as
a parasitical creature, fitted by nature to occupy
the back of a horse, in which position only he has
{ull and free use of all his faculties. Possibly the
gaucho—the horseman of tke pampas—is born
with this idea in his brain; if so, it would only be
reasonable to suppose that its correlative exists in a
modification of structure. Certain it is that an
intoxicated gaucho lifted on to the back of his
horse is perfectly safe in his seat. The horse may
do his best to rid himself of. his burden; the rider’s
legs—or posterior arms as they might appropriately
be called—retain their iron grip, notwithstanding
the fuddled brain.
350 The Naturalist in La Plata.

The gaucho is more or less bow-legged; and, of
course, the more crooked his legs are, the better
for him in his struggle for existence. Off his
horse his motions are awkward, like those of certain
tardigrade mammals of arboreal habits when re-
moved from their tree. He waddles in his walk;

 

Gaucho.

his hands feel for the reins; his toes turn inwards
like a duck’s. And here, perhaps, we can see why
foreign travellers, judging him from their own
standpoint, invariably bring against him the charge
of laziness. On horseback he is of all men most
active. His patient endurance under privations
Forse and Man. 351

that would drive other men to despair, his laborious
days and feats of horsemanship, the long journeys
he performs without rest or food, seem to simple
dwellers on the surface of the earth almost like
miracles. Deprive him of his horse, and he can do
nothing but sit on the ground cross-legged, or en
cuclillas,—on his heels. You have, to use his own
figurative language, cut off his feet.

Darwin in his earlier years appears not to have
possessed the power of reading men with that
miraculous intelligence always distinguishing his
researches concerning other and lower orders of
beings. In the Voyage of a Naturalist, speaking of
this supposed indolence of the gauchos, he tells
that in one place where workmen were in great
request, seeing a poor gaucho sitting in a listless
attitude, he asked him why he did not work. The
man’s answer was that he was too poor to work! The
philosopher was astonished and amused at the reply,
but failed to understand it. And yet, to ene ac-
quainted with these lovers of brief phrases, what
more intelligible answer could have been returned ?
The poor fellow simply meant to say that his horses
had been stolen—a thing of frequent occurrence in
that country, or, perhaps, that some minion of the
Government of the moment had seized them for the
use of the State.

To return to the starting point, the pleasures of
riding do not flow exclusively from the agreeable
sensations attendant on flight-like motion ; there is
also the knowledge, sweet in itself, that not a mere
cunningly fashioned machine, like that fabled horse
of brass ‘on which the Tartar king did ride,”

 
352 The Naturalist in La Plata.

sustains us; but a something with life and thought,
like ourselves, that feels what we feel, understands
us, and keenly participates in our pleasures. Take,
for example, the horse on which some quiet old
country gentleman is accustomed to travel; how
soberly and evenly he jogs along, picking his way
over the ground. But let him fall into the hands
of a lively youngster, and how soon he picks up a
frisky spirit! Were horses less plastic, more the
creatures of custom than they are, it would always
be necessary, before buying one, to inquire into the
disposition of its owner.

When I was thirteen years old I was smitten
with love for a horse I once saw—an untamable-
looking brute, that rolled his eyes, turbulently,
under a cloud of black mane tumbling over his
forehead. I could not take my sight off this proud,
beautiful creature, and I longed to possess him
with a great longing. His owner—a worthless
vagabond, as it happened—marked my enthusiastic
admiration, and a day or two afterwards, having
lost all his money at cards, he came to me, offering
to sell me the horse. Having obtained my father’s
consent, I rushed off to the man with all the money
I possessed—about thirty or thirty-five shillings, I
believe. After some grumbling, and finding he
could get no more, he accepted the money. My
new possession filled me with unbounded delight,
and I spent the time caressing him and leading him
about the grounds in search of succulent grasses
and choice leaves to feed him on. I am sure this
horse understood and loved me, for, in spite of
that savage look, which his eyes never quite lost,
Forse and Man. 353

3

he always displayed a singular gentleness towards
me. He never attempted to upset me, though he
promptly threw—to my great delight, I must con-
fess—anyone else who ventured to mount him.
Probably the secret of his conduct was that he hated
the whip. Of this individual, if not of the species,
the celebrated description held true :— The horse
is a docile animal, but if you flog him he will not do
so.” After he had been mine a few days, I rode on
him one morning to witness a cattle-marking on
a neighbouring estate. I found thirty or forty
gauchos on the ground engaged in catching and
branding the cattle. It was rough, dangerous
work, but apparently not rough enough to satisfy
the men, so after branding an animal and releasing
him from their lassos, several of the mounted
gauchos would, purely for sport, endeavour to
knock it down as it rushed away, by charging
furiously on to it. As Isat there enjoying the fun,
my horse stood very quietly under me, also eagerly
watching the sport. At length a bull was released,
and, smarting from the fiery torture, lowered his
horns and rushed away towards the open plain.
Three horsemen in succession shot cut from the
crowd, and charged the bull at full speed; one by
one, by suddenly swerving his body round, he
avoided them, and was escaping scot-free. At this
moment my horse—possibly interpreting a casual
touch of my hand on his neck, or some movement
of my body, as a wish to join in the sport—suddenly
sprang forward and charged on the flying bull like
a thunderbolt, striking him full in the middle of his
body, and hurling him with a tremendous shock to
354 The Naturalist in La Plata.

earth. The stricken beast rolled violently over,
while my horse stood still as a stone watching him.
Strange to say, I was not unseated, but, turning
round, galloped back, greeted by a shout of applause
from the spectators—the only sound of that
description I have ever had the privilege of listen-
ing to. They little knew that my horse had
accomplished the perilous feat without his rider’s
guidance. No doubt he had been accustomed to
do such things, and, perhaps, for the moment, had
forgotten that he had passed into the hands of a
new owner—one of tender years. He never volun-
tarily attempted an adventure of that kind again; he
knew, I suppose, that he no longer carried on his
back a reckless dare-devil, who valued not life.
Poor Picdso! he was mine till he died. I have had
scores of horses since, but never one I loved so
well.

With the gauchos the union between man and
horse is not of so intimate a nature as with the
Indians of the pampas. Horses are too cheap,
where a man without shoes to his feet may possess
a herd of them, for the closest kind of friendship
to ripen. The Indian has also less individuality of
character. The immutable nature of the conditions
he is placed in, and his savage life, which is a
perpetual chase, bring him nearer to the level of
the beast he rides. And probably the acquired
sagacity of the horse in the long co-partnership of
centuries has become hereditary, and of the nature
of an instinct. The Indian horse is more docile,
he understands his master better; the slightest
touch of the hand on his neck, which seems to have
Forse and Man. 355

developed a marvellous sensitiveness, is sufficient
to guide him. The gaucho labours to give his
horse “a silken mouth,” as he aptly calls it; the
Indian’s horse has it from birth. Occasionally the
gaucho sleeps in the saddle; the Indian can die
on his horse. During frontier warfare one hears
at times of a dead warrior being found and removed
with difficulty from the horse that carried him out
of the fight, and about whose neck his rigid fingers
were clasped in death. Even in the gaucho
country, however, where, I grieve to confess, the
horse is not deservedly esteemed, there are very
remarkable instances of equine attachment and
fidelity to man, and of a fellowship between horse
and rider of the closest kind. One only I will
relate.

When Rosas, that man of ‘ blood and iron,” was
Dictator of the Argentine country—a position which
he held for a quarter of a century—deserters from
the army were inexorably shot when cauzht, as they
generally were. But where my boyhood was spent
there was a deserter, a man named Santa Anna,
who for seven years, without ever leaving the neigh-
bourhood of his home, succeeded in eluding his pur-
suers by means of the marvellous sagacity and
watchful care exercised by his horse. When taking
his rest on the plain—for he seldom slept under a
roof—his faithful horse kept guard. At the first
sight of mounted men on the horizon he would fly
to his master, and, seizing his cloak between his
teeth, rouse him with a vigorous shake. The hunted
man would start up, and in a moment man and
horse would vanish into one of the dense reed-beds
356 The Naturalist in La Plata.

abounding in the place, and where no man could
follow. I have not space to tell more about this
horse; but at last, in the fulness of time, when the
figs were ripe—literally as well as figuratively, for
it happened in the autumn of the year—the long
tyrannous rule ended, and Santa Anna came out of
the reed-beds, where he had lived his wild-animal life,
to mix with his fellows. I knew him some years
later. He was a rather heavy-looking man, with
little to say, and his reputation for honesty was not
good in the place; but I dare say there was some-
thing good in him.

Students of nature are familiar with the modifying
effects of new conditions on man and brute. Take,
for example, the gaucho: he must every day traverse
vast distances, see quickly, judge rapidly, be ready
at all times to encounter hunger and fatigue, violent
changes of temperature, great and sudden perils.
These conditions have made him differ widely from
the peasant of the Peninsula ; he has the endurance
and keen sight of a wolf, is fertile in expedients,
quick in action, values human life not at all, and is
in pain or defeat a Stoic. Unquestionably the horse
he rides has also suffered a great change. He differs
as much from the English hunter, for instance, as
one animal can well differ from another of the same
species. He never pounds the earth and wastes his
energies in vain parade. He has not the dauntless
courage that performs such brilliant feats in the
field, and that often as not attempts the impossible.
In the chase he husbands all his strength, carrying
his head low, and almost grazing the ground with
his hoofs, so that he is not a showy animal. Con-
Horse and Man. 357

stant use, or the slow cumulative process of natural
selection, has served to develop a keenness of sense
almost preternatural. The vulture’s eye, with all the
advantage derived from the vulture’s vast elevation
above the scene surveyed, is not so far-reaching as
the sense of smell in the pampa horse. A common
phenomenon on the pampas is a sudden migration
of the horses of a district to some distant place.
This occurs in seasons of drought, when grass or
water fails. The horses migrate to some district
where, from showers having fallen or other circum-
stances, there is a better supply of food and drink.
_A slight breeze blowing from the more favoured
region, which may be forty or fifty miles away, or
even much further, is enough to start them off. Yet,
during the scorching days of midsummer, very little
moisture or smell of grass can possibly reach them
from such a distance.

Another phenomenon, even more striking, is
familiar to every frontiersman. J'or some reason,
the gaucho horse manifests the greatest terror at an
Indian invasion. No doubt his fear is, in part at
any rate, an associate feeling, the coming of the
Indians being always a time of excitement and com-
motion, sweeping like a great wave over the country ;
houses are in flames, families flying, cattle being
driven at frantic speed to places of grcater safety.
Be this as it may, long before the marauders reach
the settlement (often when they are still a whole
day’s journey from it) the horses take the alarm
and come wildly flying in: the contagion quickly
spreads to the horned cattle, and a general stampede
ensues. The gauchos maintain that the horses smell
358 The Naturalist in La Plata.

the Indians. I believe they are right, for when
passing a distant Indian camp, from which the wind
blew, the horses driven before me have suddenly
taken fright and run away, leading me a chase of
many miles. The explanation that ostriches, deer,
and other fleet animals driven in before the invaders
might be the cause of the stampede cannot be ac-
cepted, since the horses are familiar with the sight
of these animals flying from their gaucho hunters.
There is a pretty fable of a cat and dog lying ina
dark room, aptly illustrating the fine senses of these
two species. ‘Listen! I heard a feather drop!”
said the dog. ‘‘Oh, no!” said the cat, “it was a
needle ; I saw it.” The horse is not commonly
believed to have senses keen as that, and a dog
tracing his master’s steps over the city pavement is
supposed to be a feat no other animal can equal.
No doubt the artificial life a horse lives in England,
giving so little play to many of his most important
faculties, has served to blunt them. He -is a splen-
did creature ; but the noble bearing, the dash and
reckless courage that distinguish him from the modest
horse of the desert, have not been acquired without
a corresponding loss in other things. When ridden
by night the Indian horse—and sometimes the same
habit is found in the gaucho’s animal—drops his head
lower and lower as the darkness increases, with the
danger arising from the presence of innumerable
kennels concealed in the grass, until his nose sweeps
the surface like a foxhound’s. That this action is
dictated by a powerful instinct of self-preservation
is plain; for, when I have attempted to forcibly
drag the animal’s head up, he has answered such an
Florse and Man. 359

experiment: by taking the bit in his teeth, and
violently pulling the reins out of my hand. His
miraculous sense of smell measures the exact posi-
tion of every hidden kennel, every treacherous spot,
and enables him to pass swiftly and securely over it.

On the desert pampa the gaucho, for a reason
that he knows, calls the puma the “ friend of man.”
The Arab gives this designation to his horse; but
in Europe, where we do not associate closely with
the horse, the dog naturally takes the foremost place
inour affections. Thevery highest praise yet given
to this animal is probably to be found in Bacon’s
essay on Atheism. ‘For take an example of a
dog,” he says, “and mark what a generosity and
courage he will put on when he finds himself main-
tained by a man, who is to him in place of a god,
or melior natura, which courage is manifestly such
as that creature, without the confidence of a netter
nature than its own, could never attain!’’ Can we
not say as much of the horse? The very horses
that fly terror-stricken from the smell of an Indian
will, when “maintained by a man,” readily charge
into a whole host of yelling savages.

I once had a horse at home, born and bred on
the place, so docile that whenever I required him
I could go to him where the horses were at
pasture, and, though they all galloped off at
my approach, he would calmly wait to be caught.
Springing on to his back, I would go after
the other horses, or gallop home with only my
hand on his neck to guide him. 1 did not often ride
him, as he was slow and lazy, but with timid women
and children he was a favourite; he was also fre-
360 Lhe Naturalist in La Plata.

quently used for farm work, in or out of harness,
and I could shoot from his back. In the peach
season he would roam about the plantation, getting
the fruit, of which he was very fond, by tugging at
the lower branckes of the trees and shaking it down
in showers. One intensely dark night I was riding
heme on this horse. I came through a road with a
wire fence on each side, two miles in length, and
when I had got nearly to the end of this road my
horse suddenly stopped short, uttering a succession
of loud terrified snorts. I could see nothing but the
intense blackness of the night before me, and tried
to encourage him to goon. Touching him on the
neck, I found his hair wet with the sudden profuse
sweat of extreme fear. ‘he whip made no impres-
sion on him. He continued to back away, his eyes
apparently fixed on some object of horror just before
him, while he trembled to such a degree that I was
shaken in the saddle. He attempted several times
to wheel round and run away, but I was determined
not to yield to him, and continued the contest.
Suddenly, when I was beginning to despair of getting
home by that road, he sprang forward, and regularly
charged the (to me) invisible object before him, and
in another moment, when he had apparently passed
it, taking the bit between his teeth he almost flew
over the ground, never pausing till he brought me to
my own door. When I dismounted his terror seemed
gone, but he hung his head in a dejected manner,
like a horse that has been under the saddle all day.
I have never witnessed another such instance of
almost maddening fear. His terror and apprehen-
sion were like what we can imagine a man experi-
encing at sight of a ghost in some dark solitary place.
fTorse and Man. 361

Yet he did not forcibly carry me away from it, as he
might so easily have done; but, finding himself
maintained by a “ nature superior to his own,” he
preferred to face it. I have never met in the dog
a more striking example of this noblest kind of
brute courage. The incident did not impress me
very much at the moment, but when I came to reflect
that my sight was mere blindness compared with
that of my horse, and that it was not likely his
imagination clothed any familiar natural object
with fantastic terrors, it certainly did impress me
very deeply.

1 am loth to finish with my subject, in which, to
express myself in the manner of the gauchos, I
have passed over many matters, like good grass and
fragrant herbs the galloping horse sniffs at but can-
not stay to taste; and especially loth to conclude
with this last incident, which has in it an element
of gloom. I would rather first go back for a few mo-
ments to my original theme—the pleasures of riding,
for the sake of mentioning a species of pleasure my
English reader has probably never tasted or even
heard of. When riding by night on the pampas, I
used to enjoy lying back on my horse till my head
and shoulders rested well on his back, my feet also
being raised till they pressed against his neck; and
in this position, which practice can make both safe
and comfortable, gaze up into the starry sky, To
enjoy this method of riding thoroughly, a sure-footed
unshod horse with perfect confidence in his rider is
necessary ; and he must be made to go at a swift
and smooth pace over level grassy ground. With
these conditions the sensation is positively delightful.
Nothing of earth is visible, only the vast circle of
362 The Naturalist in La Plata.

the heavens glittering with innumerable stars ; the
muffled sound of the hoofs on the soft sward becomes
in fancy only the rushing of the wings of our Pegasus,
while the enchanting illusion that we are soaring
through space possesses the mind. Unfortunately,
however, this method of riding is impracticable in
England. And, even if people with enthusiasm
enough could be found to put it in practice by im-
porting swift light-footed Arabian or pampa horses,
and carecring about level parks on dark starry mghts,
probably a shout of derision would be raised against
so undignified a pastime.

Apropos of dignity, I will relate, in conclusion, an
incident in my London life which may possibly in-
terest psychologists. Some time ago in Oxford
Street I got on top of an omnibus travelling west.
My mind was preoccupied, I was anxious to get
home, and, in an absent kind of way, I became
irritated at the painfully slow rate of progress. It
was all an old familiar experience, the deep thought,
lessening pace, and consequent irritation. The in-
dolent brute I imagined myself riding was, as usual,
taking advantage of his rider’s abstraction; but I
would soon “‘feelingly persuade” him that I was not
so far gone as to lose sight of the difference between
a swinging gallop and a walk. So, elevating my
umbrella, I dealt the side of the omnibus a sounding
blow, very much to the astonishment of my fellow-
passengers, So overgrown are we with usages,
habits, tricks of thought and action springing from
the soil we inhabit; and when we have broken away
and removed ourselves far from it, so long do the
dead tendrils still cling to us!
CHAPTER XXIV.
SEEN AND LOST.

WE can imagine what the feelings of a lapidary
would be—an enthusiast whose life is given to the
study of precious stones, and whose sole delight is
in the contemplation of their manifold beauty—if a
stranger should come in to him, and, opening his
hand, exhibit a new unknown gem, splendid as ruby
or aS sapphire, yet manifestly no mere variety of
any familiar stone, but differing as widely from all
others as diamond from opal or cat’s-eye; and then,
just when he is beginning to rejoice in that strange
exquisite loveliness, the hand should close and the
stranger, with a mocking smile on his lips, go forth
and disappear from sight in the crowd. A feeling
such as that would be is not unfrequently experi-
enced by the field naturalist whose favoured lot it
is to live in a country not yet “ thoroughly worked
out,” with its every wild inhabitant scientifically
namcd, accurately described, and skilfully figured in
some colossal monograph. One swift glance of the
practised eye, ever eagerly searching for some new
thing, and he knows that here at length is a form
never previously seen by him; but his joy is per-
haps only for a few moments, and the prize is
snatched from sight for ever. The lapidary might

2B
364 The Naturalist in La Plata.

have some doubts; he might think that the
stranger had, after all, only mocked him with the.
sight of a wonderful artificial gem, and that a close
examination would have proved its worthlessness ;
but the naturalist can have no doubts: if he is an
enthusiast, well acquainted with the fauna of his
district, and has good eyesight, he knows that there
is no mistake; for there it is, the new strange
form, photographed by instantaneous process on his
mind, and there it will remain, a tantalizing image,
its sharp lines and fresh colouring unblurred by
time.

Walking in some open forest glade, he may look
up just in time to see a great strange butterfly—a
blue Morpho, let us say, wandering in some far
country where this angel insect is unknown—pass-
ing athwart his vision with careless, buoyant flight,
the most sylph-like thing in nature, and all blue
and pure like its aérial home, but with a more
delicate and wonderful brilliance in its cerulean
colour, giving such unimaginable glory to its broad
airy wings; and then, almost before his soul has
had time to feel its joy, it may soar away unloitering
over the tall trees, to be seen no more.

But the admiration, the delight, and the desire
are equally great, and the loss just as keenly felt,
whether the strange species seen happens to be one
surpassingly beautiful or not. Its newnessis to the
naturalist its greatest attraction. How beautiful
beyond all others seems a certain small unnamed
brown bird to my mind! So many years have
passed and its image has not yet grown dim; yet I
saw it only for a few moments, when it hopped out
Seen and Lost. 365

from the thick foliage and perched within two or
three yards of me, not afraid, but only curious; and
after peering at me first with one eye and then the
other, and wiping its small dagger on a twig, it
_ flew away and was seen no more. For many days
T sought for it, and for years waited its reappearance,
and it was more to me than ninety and nine birds
which I had always known ; yet it was very modest,
dressed in a brown suit, very pale on the breast and
white on the throat, and for distinction a straw-
coloured stripe over the eye—that ribbon which
Queen Nature bestows on so many of her feathered
subjects, in recognition, I suppose, of some small
and common kind of merit. If I should meet with
it in a collection J should know it again; only, in
that case it would look plain and homely to me—
this little bird that for a time made all others seem
unbeautiful.

Even a richer prize may come in sight for a brief
period—one of the nobler mammalians, which are
fewer in number, and bound to earth Jike ourselves,
and therefore so much better known than the wan-
dering children of air. In some secluded spot,
resting amidst luxuriant herbage or forest under-
growth, a slight rustling makes us start, and, lo!
looking at us from the clustering leaves, a strange
face ; the leaf-like ears erect, the dark eyes round
with astonishment, and the sharp black nose
twitching and sniffing audibly, to take in the
unfamiliar flavour of a human presence from the
air, like the pursed-up and smacking lips of a wine-
drinker tasting a new vintage. No sooncr seen
than gone, like a dream, 4 phantom, the quaint
366 The Naturalist in La Plata.

furry face to be thereafter only an image in
memory.

Sometimes the prize may be a very rich one, and
actually within reach of the hand—challenging the
hand, as it were, to grasp it, and yet presently slip
away to be seen no more, although it may be sought
for day after day, with a hungry longing com-
parable to that of some poor tramp who finds a
gold doubloon in the forest, and just when he is
beginning to realize all that it means to him drops
it in the grass and cannot find it again. There is
not the faintest motion in the foliage, no rustle of
any dry leaf, and yet we know that something has
moved—something has come or has gone; and,
gazing fixedly at one spot, we suddenly see that it
is still there, close to us, the pointed ophidian head
and long neck, not drawn back and threatening,
but sloping forward, dark and polished as the green
and purple weed-stems springing from marshy soil,
and with an irregular chain of spots extending
down the side. Motionless, too, as the stems it is;
but presently the tongue, crimson and glistening,
darts out and flickers, like a small jet of smoke and
flame, and is withdrawn ; then the smooth serpent
head drops down, and the thing is gone.

How I saw and lost the noble wrestling frog has
been recounted in Chapter IV. : other tantalizing
experiences of the same kind remain to be told in
the present chapter, which is not intended for the
severe naturalist, but rather for such readers as
may like to hear something about the pains and
pleasures of the seeker as well as the result of the
seeking.
Seen and Lost. 367

One of my earliest experiences of seeing and
losing relates to a humming-bird--a veritable
‘jewel of ornithology.” I was only a boy at the
time, but already pretty well acquainted with the
birds of the district I lived in, near La Plata River,
and among them were three species of the humming-
bird. One spring day I saw a fourth—a wonderful
little thing, only half as big as the smallest of the
other three—the well-known Phaithornis splendens
—and scarcely larger than a bumble-bee. I was
within three feet of it as it sucked at the flowers,

 

A lost Unmming-bird. +

suspended motionless in the air, the wings appear-
ing formless and mist-like from their rapid vibratory
motion, but the rest of the upper plumage was seen
distinctly as anything can be seen. The head and
neck and upper part of the back were emerald green,
with the metallic glitter usually seen in the burnished
scale-like feathers of these small birds; the lower
half of the back was velvet-black; the tail and tail-
coverts white as snow. On two other occasions, at
intervals of a few days, I saw this brilliant little
stranger, always very near, and tried without success
368 The Naturalist in La Plata.

to capture it, after which it disappeared from the
plantation. Four years later I saw it once again not
far from the same place. It was late in summer,
and I was out walking on the level plain where the
ground was carpeted with short grass, and nothing
else grew there except a solitary stunted cardoon
thistle-bush with one flower on its central stem
above the grey-green artichoke-like leaves. The
disc of the great thorny blossom was as broad as
that of a sunflower, purple in colour, delicately
frosted with white; on this flat disc several insects
were feeding—flies, fireflies, and small wasps—and
I paused for a few minutes in my walk to watch -
them. Suddenly a small misty object flew swiftly
downwards past my face, and paused motionless in
the air an inch or two above the rim of the flower.
Once more my lost humming-bird, which I remem-
bered so well! The exquisitely graceful form, half
circled by the misty moth-like wings, the glittering
green and velvet-black mantle, and snow-white tail
spread open like a fan—there it hung like a beau-
tiful bird-shaped gem suspended by an invisible gos-
samer thread. One—two—three moments passed,
while I gazed, trembling with rapturous excitement,
and then, before I had time to collect my faculties
and make a forlorn attempt to capture it with my
hat, away it flew, gliding so swiftly on the air that
form and colour were instantly lost, and in
appearance it was only an obscure grey line traced
rapidly along the low sky and fading quickly out of
sight. And that was the last I ever saw of it.

The case of this small “ winged gem,” still wan-
dering nameless in the wilds, reminds me of yet
Seen and Lost. 369

another bird seen and lost, also remarkable for its
diminutive size. For years 1 iooked for it, and
when the wished-for opportunity came, and it was
in my power to secure it, I refrained; and Fate
punished me by never permitting me to see it again.
On several occasions while riding on the pampas I
had caught glimpses of this minute bird flitting up
mothlike, with uncertain tremulous flight, and again
dipping into the weeds, tall grass, or thistles. Its
plumage was yellowish in hue, like sere dead herb-
age, and its extremely slender body looked longer
and slimmer than it was, owing to the great length
of its tail, or of the two middle tail-feathers. I
knew that it was a Synallaxis—a genus of small
birds of the Woodhewer family. Now, as I have
said in a former chapter, these are wise little birds,
more interesting—I had almost said more beautiful
—in their wisdom, or wisdom-simulating instincts,
than the quatzel in its resplendent green, or the
cock-of-the-rock in its vivid scarlet and orange
mantle. Wrens and mocking-birds have melody
for their chief attraction, and the name of each
kind is, to our minds, also the name of a certain
kind of sweet music; we think of swifts and
swallows in connection with the mysterious migra-
tory instinct ; and humming-birds have a glittering
mantle, and the miraculous motions necessary to
display its ever-changing iridescent beauty. In_
like manner, the homely Dendrocolaptide possess
the genius for building, and an account of one of
these small birds without its nest would be like a
biography of Sir Christopher Wren that made no
mention of his works. It was not strange then,
37G The Naturalist in La Plata.

that when I saw this small bird the question rose
to my mind, What kind of nest does it build ?

One morning in the month of October, the great
breeding-time for birds in the Southern Hemisphere,
while cautiously picking my way through a bed of
cardoon bushes, the mysterious little creature flitted
up and perched among the clustering leaves quite
near tome. It uttered a feeble grasshopper-like
chirp; and then a second individual, smaller, paler-
coloured, and if possible shyer than the first, showed
itself for two or three seconds, after which both
birds dived once more into concealment. How glad
I was to see them! for here they were, male and
female, in a suitable spot in my own fields, where
they evidently meant to breed. Every day after
that I paid them one cautious visit, and by waiting
from five to fifteen minutes, standing motionless
cmong the thistles, I always succeeded in getting
them to show themselves for a few moments. I
could easily have secured them then, but my wish
was to discover their nesting habits; and after
watching for some days, I was rewarded by finding
their nest ; then for three days more I watched it
slowly progressing towards completion, and each
time I approached it one of the small birds would
flit out to vanish into the herbage. The structure
was about six inches long, and not more than two
inches in diameter, and was placed horizontally on
a broad stiff cardoon leaf, sheltered by other leaves
above. It was made of the finest dry grass loosely
woven, and formed a simple perfectly straight tube,
open at both ends. The aperture was so small that
I could only insert my little finger, and the bird
Seen and Lost. 71

could not, of course, have turned round in so narrow
@ passage, and so always went in at one end and
left by the other. On visiting the spot on the
fourth day I found, to my intense chagrin, that the
delicate fabric had been broken and thrown down
by some animal; also, that the birds had utterly

 

Smail Spine-tail and Nest.

vanished—for I sought them in vain, both there and
in every weedy and thistly spot in the neighbour-
hood. The bird without the nest had seemed a
useless thing to possess; now, for all my pains, I
had only a wisp of fine dry grass in my hand, and
no bird. The shy, modest little creature, dwelling
372 The Naturalist in La Plata.

violet-like amidst clustering leaves, and even when
showing itself still ‘ half-hidden from the eye,” was
thereafter to be only a tantalizing image in memory.
Still, my case was not so hopeless as that of the
imagined lapidary ; for however rare a species may
be, and near to its final extinction, there must
always be many individuals existing, and I was
cheered by the thought that I might yet meet with
one at some future time. And, even if this par-
ticular species was not to gladden my sight again,
there were others, scores and hundreds more, and
at any moment I might expect to see one shining, a
living gem, on Nature’s open extended palm.

Sometimes it has happened that an animal would
have been overlooked or passed by with scant
notice, to be forgotten, perhaps, but for some sin-
gular action or habit which has instantly given it
a strange importance, and made its possession
desirable.

I was once engaged in the arduous and monoto-
nous task of driving a large number of sheep a dis-
tance of two hundred and fifty miles, in excessively
hot weather, when sheep prefer standing still to
travelling. Five or six gauchos were with me, and
we were on the southern pampas of Buenos Ayres.
near to a long precipitous stony sierra which rose
to a height of five or six hundred feet above the
plain. Who that has travelled for eighteen days on
a dead level in a broiling sun can resist a hill?
That sierra was more sublime to us than Conon-
dagua, than Illimani.

Leaving the sheep, I rode to it with three of the
men; aad after securing our horses on the lower
Seen and Lost. 373

1a

slope, we began our laborious ascent. Now the
gaucho when taken from his horse, on which he
lives like a kind of parasite, is a very slow-moving
creature, and I soon left my friends far behind,
Coming to a place where ferns and flowering herbage
grew thick, I began to hear all about me sounds of
a character utterly unlike any natural sound I was
acquainted with—innumerable low clear voices
tinkling or pealing like minute sweet-toned, resonant
bells—for the sounds were purely metallic and per-
fectly bell-like. I was completely ringed round
with the mysterious music, and as I walked it rose
and sank rhythmically, keeping time to my steps.
I stood still, and immediately the sounds ceased.
I took a step forwards, and again the fairy-bells
were set ringing, as if at each step my foot touched
a central meeting point of a thousand radiating
threads, each thread attached toa peal of little bells
hanging concealed among the herbage. I waited
for my companions, and called their attention to
the phenomenon, and to them also it was a thing
strange and perplexing. ‘It is the bell-snake !”
cried one excitedly. This is the rattle-snake; but
although at that time I had no experience of this
reptile, I knew that he was wrong. Yet how
natural the mistake! The Spanish name of “ bell-
snake”? had made him imagine that the whirring
sound of the vibrating rattles, resembling muffled
cicada music, is really bell-like in character. Hvyen-
tually we discovered that the sound was made by
grasshoppers ; but they were scen only to be lost,
for I could not capture one, so excessively shy and
cunning had the perpetual ringing of their own
374 Lhe Naturalist in La Plata.

little tocsins made them. And presently [ had to
return tomy muttons; and afterwards there was no
opportunity of revisiting the spot to observe so
singular a habit again and collect specimens. It
was a very slender grasshopper, about an inch and
a half long, of a uniform, tawny, protective colour
—the colour of an old dead leaf. It also possessed
a protective habit common to most grasshoppers, of
embracing a slender vertical stem with its four fine
front legs, and moving cunningly round soas to
keep the stem always in front of it to screen itself
from sight. Only other grasshoppers are silent
when alarmed, and the silence and masking action
are related, and together prevent the insect from
being detected. But this particular species, or race,
or colony, living on the sides of the isolated sierra,
had acquired a contrary habit, resembling a habit
of gregarious birds and mammals, For this inform-
ing sound (unless it mimicked some warning-sound,
as of a rattlesnake, which it didn’t) could not pos-
sibly be beneficial to individuals living alone, as
grasshoppers generally do, but, on the contrary,
only detrimental; and such a habit was therefore
purely for the public good, and could oniy have
arisen in a species that always lived in commu-
nities.

On another occasion, in the middle of the hot
season, I was traveiling alone across-country in a
locality which was new to me, a few leagues east of
La Plata River, in its widest part. About eleven
o’clock in the morning I came to a low-lying level
plain where the close-cropped grass was vivid green,
although elsewhere all over the country the vegeta-
Seen and Lost. 375

tion was scorched and dead, and dry as ashes. The
ground being so favourable, I crossed this low
plain at a swinging gallop, and in about thirty
minutes’ time. In that half-hour I saw a vast
number of snakes, all of one kind, and a species
new to me; but my anxiety to reach my destina-
tion before the oppressive heat of the afternoon
made me hurry on. So numerous were the snakes
in that green place that frequently I had as many
as a dozen in sight at one time. It looked to me
like a coronella—harmless colubrine snakes—but
was more than twice as large as either of the two
species of that genus I was already familiar with.
In size they varied greatly, ranging from two to
fully five feet in length, and the colour was dull
yellow or tan, slightly lined and mottled with shades
of brown. Among dead or partially withered grass
and herbage they would have been undistinguishable
at even a very short distance, but on the vivid
green turf they were strangely conspicuous, some
being plainly visible forty or fifty yards away; and
not one was seen coiled up. They were all lying
motionless, stretched out full length, and looking
like dark yellow or tan-coloured ribbons, thrown on
to the grass. It was most unusual to see so many
snakes together, although not surprising in the cir-
cumstances. The December heats had dried up all
the watercourses and killed the vegetation, and
made the earth hard and harsh as burnt bricks; and
- at such times snakes, especially the more active non-
venomous kinds, will travel long distances, in their
slow way, in search of water. Those I saw during
my ride had probably been attracted by thc mois-
376 The Naturalist in La Plata.

ture from a large area of country; and although
there was no water, the soft fresh grass must have
been grateful to them. Snakes are seen coiled up
when they are at home; when travelling and far
afield, they le as a rule extended full length, even
when resting—and they are generally resting.
Pausing at length, before quitting this green plain,
to give my horse a minute’s rest, I got off and
approached a large snake; but when I was quite
twelve yards from it, it lifted its head, and, turning
deliberately round, came rather swiftly at me. I
retreated, and it followed, until, springing on to my —
horse, I left it, greatly surprised at its action, and
beginning to think that it must be venomous. As
Irode on the feeling of surprise mecreased, con-
quering haste; and in the end, seeing more snakes,
I dismounted and approached the largest, when
exactly the same thing occurred again, the snake
rousing itself and coming angrily at me when I was
still (considering the dull lethargic character of the
deadliest kinds) at an absurd distance from it.
Again and again I repeated the experiment, with the
same result. And at length I stunned one with a
blow of my whip to examine its mouth, hut found
no poison-fangs in it.

I then resumed my journey, expecting to meet
with more snakes of the same kind at my destina-
tion; but there were none, and very soon business
called me to a distant place, and I never met with
this species afterwards. But when I rode away
from that green spot, and was once more on the
higher, desolate, wind-swept plain surrounding it—
a rustling sea of giant thistles, still erect, although
Seen and Lost. 377

dead, and red as rust, and filling the hot blue sky
with silvery down—it was with a very strange
feeling. The change from the green and living to
the dead and dry and dusty was so great! There
seemed to be something mysterious, extra-natural,
in that low level plain, so green and fresh and
snaky, where my horse’s hoofs had made no sound
—a place where no man dwelt, and no cattle
pastured, and no wild bird folded its wing. And
the serpents there were not like others—the’
mechanical coiled-up thing we know, a mere bone-
and-muscle man-trap, set by the elements, to spring
and strike when trodden on: but these had a high
intelligence, a lofty spirit, and were filled with a
noble rage and astonishment that any other kind of
creature, even a man, should venture there to disturb
their sacred peace. It was a fancy, born of that
sense of mystery which the unknown and the
unusual in nature wakes in us—an obsolescent
feeling that still links us to the savage. But the
simple fact was wonderful enough, and that has
been set down simply and apart from all fancies.
If the reader happens not to be a naturalist, it is
right to tell him that a naturalist cannot exaggerate
consciously; and if he be capable of unconscious
exaggeration, then he is no naturalist. He should
hasten “to joi the innumerable caravan that
moves ” to the fantastic realms of romance. Look-
ing at the simple fact scientifically, it was a case of
mimicry—the harmless snake mimicking the ficrce
threatening gestures and actions proper to some
deadly kind. Only with this difference: the
venomous snake, of all deadly things in nature, is
373 The Naturalist in La Plata.

the slowest to resentment, the most reluctant to
enter into a quarrel ; whereas in this species angry
demonstrations were made when the intruder was
yet far off, and before he had shown any hostile
intentions.

My last case—the last, that is, of the few I have
selected—relates to a singular variation in the
human species. On this occasion I] was again
travelling alone in a strange district on the southern
frontier of Buenos Ayres. On a bitterly cold mid-
winter day, shortly before noon, I arrived, stiff and
tired, at one of those pilgrims’ rests or the pampas
—a wayside pulperia, or public house, where the
traveller can procure anything he may require or
desire, from a tumbler of Brazilian rum to make
glad his heart, to a poncho, or cloak of blue cloth
with fluffy scarlet lining, to keep him warm 0’
nights; and, to speed him on his way, a pair of
cast-iron spurs weighing six pounds avoirdupois,
with rowels eight inches in diameter, manufactured
in this island for the use of barbarous men beyond
the sea, The wretched mud-and-grass building was
surrounded by a foss crossed by a plank draw-
bridge ; outside of the enclosure twelve or fourteen
saddled horses were standing, and from the loud
noise of talk and laughter in the bar I conjectured
that a goodly company of rough frontiersmen were
already making merry at that early hour. It was
necessary for me to go in among them to see the
proprietor of the place and ask permi:sion to visit
his kitchen in order to make myself a “‘ tin of coffee,”
that being the refreshment I felt inclined for.
When I went in and made my salutation, one man
Seen and Lost. 379

wheeled round square before me, stared straight
into my eyes, and in an exceedingly high-pitched
reedy or screechy voice and a sing-song tone re-
turned my “ good morning,” and bade me call for
the liquid I loved best at his expense. I declined
with thanks, and in accordance with gaucho
etiquette added that I was prepared to pay for his
liquor. It was then for him to say that he had
already been served and so let the matter drop, but
he did not do so: he screamed out in his wild
animal voice that he would take gin. I paid for
his drink, and would, I think, have felt greatly
surprised at his strange insolent behaviour, so un-
like that of the usually courteous gaucho, but this
thing affected me not at all, so profoundly had his
singular appearance and voice impressed me; and
for the rest of the time I remained in the place I
continued to watch him narrowly. Professor
Huxley has somewhere said, ‘‘ A variation frequently
occurs, but those who notice it take no care about
noting down the particulars.” That is not a failing
of mine, and this is what I noted down while the
man’s appearance was still fresh in memory. He
was about five feet eleven inches in height—very
tall for a gaucho—straight and athletic, with ex-
ceedingly broad shoulders, which made his round
head look small; long arms and huge hands. The
round flat face, coarse black hair, swarthy reddish
colour, and smooth hairless cheeks seemed to show
that he had more Indian than Spanish blood in him,
while his round black eyes were even more like
those of a rapacious animal in expression than in the
pure-blooded Indian. He also had the Indian or

2c
380 The Naturalist in La Plata.

half-breed’s moustache, when that natural ornament
is permitted to grow, and which is composed of
thick bristles standing out like a cat’s whiskers.
The mouth was the marvellous feature, for it was
twice the size of an average mouth, and the two lips
were alike in thickness. This mouth did not smile,
but snarled, both when he spoke and when he
should have smiled; and when he snarled the whole
of his teeth and a part of the gums were displayed.
The teeth were not as in other human beings—
incisors, canines, and molars: they were all exactly
alike, above and below, each tooth a gleaming white
triangle, broad at the gum where it touched its
companion teeth, and with a point sharp as the
sharpest-pointed dagger. They were like the teeth
of a shark or crocodile. I noticed that when he
showed them, which was very often, they were not
set together as in dogs, weasels, and other savage
snarling animals, but apart, showing the whole
terrible serration in the huge red mouth.

After getting his gin he joined in the boisterous
conversation with the others, and this gave me an
opportunity of studying his face for several minutes,
all the time with a curious feeling that I had put
myself into a cage with a savage animal of horrible
aspect, whose instincts were utterly unknown to
me, and were probably not very pleasant. It was
interesting to note that whenever one of the others
addressed him directly, or turned to him when speak-
ing, it was with a curious expression, not of fear,
but partly amusement and partly something else
which I could not fathom. Now, one might think
that this was natural enough purely on account of
Seen and Lost. 381

the man’s extraordinary appearance. I do not think
that a sufficient explanation ; for however strange
a man’s appearance may be, his intimate friends
and associates soon lose all sense of wonder at his
strangeness, and even forget that he is unlike others.
My belief is that this curiosity, or whatever it was
they showed in their faces, was due to something in
his character—a mental strangeness, showing itself
at unexpected times, and which might flash out at
any moment to amuse or astonish them. There
was certainly a correspondence between the snarling
action of the mouth and the dangerous form of the
teeth, perfect as that in any snarling animal; and
such animals, it should be remembered, snarl not
only when angry and threatening, but in their
playful moods as well. Other and more important
correspondences or correlations might have existed;
and the voice was certainly unlike any human voice
I have ever heard, whether in white, red, or black
man. But the time I had for observation was
short, the conversation revealed nothing further,
and by-and-by I went away in search of the odorous
kitchen, where there would be hot water for coffee,
or at all events cold water and a kettle, and materials
for making a fire—to wit, bones of dead cattle,
* buffalo chips,” and rancid fat.

I have never been worried with the wish or am-
bition to be a head-hunter in the Dyak sense, but on
this one occasion I did wish that it had been possible,
without violating any law, or doing anything to a
fellow-creature which I should not like done to
myself, to have obtained possession of this man’s
head, with its set of unique and terrible teeth. For
382 The Naturalist in La Plata.

how, in the name of Evolution, did he come by
them, and by other physical peculiarities—the
snarling habit and that high-pitched animal voice,
for instance—which made him a being different
from others—one separate and far apart? Was
he, so admirably formed, so complete and well-
balanced, merely a freak of nature, to use an old-
fashioned phrase—a sport, or spontaneous individual
variation—an experiment for a new human type,
imagined by Nature in some past period, incon-
ceivably long ago, but which she had only now, too
late, found time to carry out? Or rather was he
like that little hairy maiden exhibited not long ago
in London, a reproduction of the past, the mystery
called reversion—a something in the life of a species
like memory in the life of an individual, the memory
which suddenly brings back to the old man’s mind
the image of his childhood? For no dream-monster
in human form ever appeared to me with so strange
and terrible a face; and this was no dream but
sober fact, for I saw and spoke with this man;
and unless cold steel has given him his quietus,
or his own horse has crushed him, or a mad bull
gored him—all natural forms of death in that wiid
land—he is probably still living and in the prime
of life, and perhaps at this very moment drink-
ing gin at some astonished traveller’s expense
at that very bar where I met him. The old
Palawolithic man, judging from the few remains we
have of him, must have had an unspeakably savage
and, to our way of thinking, repulsive and horrible
aspect, with his villamous low receding forehead,
broad nose, great projecting upper jaw, and retreat-
Seen and Lost. 383

ing chin; to mect such a man face to face in
Piccadilly would frighten a nervous person of the
present time. But his teeth were not unlike our
own, only very much larger and more powerful,
and well adapted to their work of masticating the
flesh, underdone and possibly raw, of mammoth and
rhinoceros. If, then, this living man recalls a type
of the past, it is of a remoter past, a more primitive
man, the volume of whose history is missing from
the geological record. To speculate on such a
subject seems idle and useless; and when I coveted
possession of that head it was not because I thought
that it might lead to any fresh discovery. A lower
motive inspired the feeling. I wished for it only
that I might bring it over the sea, to drop it like a
new apple of discord, suited to the spirit of the
times, among the anthropologists and evolutionists
generally of this old and learned world. Inscribed,
of course, “To the most learned,” but giving no
locality and no particulars. I wished to do that for
the pleasure—not a very noble kind of pleasure, I
allow—of witnessing from some safe hiding-place
the stupendous strife that would have ensued—a
battle more furious, lasting and fatal to many a
brave knight of biology, than was ever yet fought
over any bone or bony fragment or fabric ever
picked up, including the celebrated cranium of the
Neanderthal.
APPENDIX.

Tur Puma, orn Lion or AMERICA.

Tue following passage occurs in an article on “The
Naturalist in La Plata,” by the late Professor Romanes,
which appeared in the Nineteenth Century, May, 1898.
After quoting the account of the puma’s habits and character
given in the book, the writer says:—‘“I have received
corroboration touching all these points from a gentleman
who, when walking alone and unarmed on the skirts of a
forest, was greatly alarmed by a large puma coming out to
meet him. Deeming it best not to stand, he advanced to
meet the animal, which thereupon began to gambol around
his feet and rub against his legs, after the manner of an
affectionate cat. At first he thought these movements must
have been preliminary to some peculiar mode of attack, and
therefore he did not respond, but walked quietly on, until
the puma suddenly desisted and re-entered the forest. This
gentleman says that, until the publication of Mr. Hudson’s
book, he had always remained under the impression that
that particular puma must have been insane.”

Music anp Dancine In NatTurRE.

T have found among my papers the following mislaid note
on the subject of sportive displays of mammalians, which
should have been used on page 281, where the subject is
briefly treated :—Most mammalians are comparatively silent
and live on the ground, and not having the power to escape
Appendix. 385

easily, which birds have, and being more persecuted by man,
they do not often disport themselves unrestrainedly in his
presence; it is difficult to watch any wild animal without
the watcher’s presence being known or suspected. Never-
theless, their displays are not so rare as we might imagine.
Ihave more than once detected species, with which I was,
or imagined myself to be, well acquainted, disporting them-
selves in a manner that took me completely by surprise.
While out tinamou shooting one day in autumn, near my
own home in La Plata, 1 spied a troop of about a dozen
weasels racing madly about over a vizcacha village—the
mound and group of pit-like burrows inhabited by a
community of vizcachas. These weasels were of the large
common species, Galictis barbara, about the size of a cat;
and were engaged in a pastime resembling a complicated
dance, and so absorbed were they on that occasion that they
took no notice of me when I walked up to within nine or ten
yards of them, and stood still to watch the performance.
They were all swiftly racing about and leaping over the pits,
always doubling quickly back when the limit of the mound
was reached, and although apparently carried away with
excitement, and crossing each other’s tracks at all angles,
and this so rapidly and with so many changes of direction
that I became confused when trying to keep any one animal
in view, they never collided nor even came near enough to
touch one another. The whole pertormance resembled, on a
greatly magnified scale and without its beautiful smoothness
and lightning swiftness, the fantastie dance of small black
water-beetles, frequently seen on the surface of a pool or
stream, during which the insects glide about in a limited
area with such celerity as to appear like black curving lines
traced by fiying invisible pens; and as the lines everywhere
cross and intersect, they form an intricate pattern on the
surface. After watching the weasel dance for some minutes,
I stepped up to the mound, whereupon the animals became
alarmed and rushed pell-mell into the burrows, but only to
reappear in a few seconds, thrusting up their long ebony-
386 Appendix.

black necks and flat grey-capped heads, snarling and
chattering at me, glaring with fierce, beady eyes.

Tue Srrance Instincts oF CATTLE.

In November and December, 1893, a short correspondence
appeared in the Meld on the curious subject of “ Dogs
burying their dead.” It arose through a letter from a Mr.
Gould, of Albany, Western Australia, relating the following
incident :—

A settler shot a bitch from a neighbouring estate that had
formed the habit of coming on to his land to visit and play
with his dog. The dog, finding his companion dead, was
observed to dig a large hole in the ground, into which he
dragged the carcase; but he did not cover it with earth.
The writer wished to know if any reader of the Field had
met with a similar case. Some notes, which I contributed
in reply to this letter, bear on one of the subjects treated in
the chapter on “strange instincts,” namely, the instinct of
social animals to protect and shield their fellows; and for

this reason I have thought it best to reproduce them in this
place.

I remember on one occasion watching at intervals, for an
entire day, a large and very savage dog keeping watch over
the body of a dead bitch that had been shot. He made no
attempt to bury the dead animal, but he never left it. He
was observed more than once trying to drag the body away,
doubtless with the intention of hiding it; not succeeding in
these attempts, he settled down by its side again, although
it was evident that he was suffering greatly from thirst and
heat. It was at last only with the greatest trouble that the
people of the house succeeded in getting the body away and
burying it out of his sight.

Another instance, more to the point, occurred at my own
house on the pampas, and I was one of several persons who
witnessed it. A small, red, long-haired bitch—a variety of
Appendix. 387

the common native cur—gave birth to four or five pups. A
peon was told to destroy them, and, waiting until the bitch
was out of sight, he carried them off to the end of the
orchard, some 400 or 500 yards from the house, and threw
them into a pool of water which was only two to three feet
deep. The bitch passed the rest of the day in rushing
frantically about, searching for her young, and in the evening,
a little after dark, actually succeeded in finding them,
although they were lying at the bottom of the pool. She
got them all out, and carried them, one by one, to another
part of the grounds, where she passed the night with them,
uttering at intervals the most piercing cries. In the morn-
ing she carried them to still another spot, where there was
a soft mould, and then dug a hole large and deep enough to
bury them all, covering them over with the loose earth.
Her task done, she returned to the house to sleep all day,
but when night came again the whole piteous performance
was repeated: the pups were dug up, and she passed the
long, piercingly cold night—for it was in the depth of
winter—trying to keep them warm, and uttering, as before,
distressing cries. Yet a third time the whole thing was
repeated ; but after the third night, when the dog came home
to sleep, the dead pups were taken out of the ground and
buried at a distance.

Such an action as this strikes one with astonishment only
because we have the custom of burying our dead, and are too
ready at all times to regard the dog as human-like. But the
explanation of the action in this case is to be found in the
familiar fact that very many animals, including the dog,
have the habit or instinct of burying or concealing the thing
they wish to leave in safety. Thus, the dog buries the bone
it does not want to eat, and when hungry digs it up again.
When a dog buries or hides the dead body of the she dog it
was attached to, or the she dog buries her dead young, it is
with the same motive—namely, to conceal the animal that
cannot be roused, and that it would not be safe to leave
exposed.
388 Appendix.

It is plain to all who observe their actions that the lower
animals have no comprehension of death. In the case of two
animals that are accustomed to play or to be much together,
if one dies, or is killed, and its body left, the other will come
to sniff at, touch, and at last try to rouse it; but finding all
attempts vain, it will at length go away to seek companion-
ship elsewhere. In cases where the attachment is much
stronger, the dead body may be watched over for an indefinite
period. A brother of mine once related to mea very pathetic
incident which occurred at an estancia on the pampas where
he was staying. A large portion of the land was a low, level,
marshy plain, partly overgrown with reeds and rushes; and
one day, in this wilderness, a little boy of eight or nine,
from the estancia, lost himself. A small dog, his invariable
attendant, had gone out with him, but did not return.
Seven days later the poor boy was found, at a great distance
from the house, lying on the grass, where he had died of ex-
haustion. The dog was lying coiled up at his side, and
appeared to be sleeping; but, when spoken to, he did not
stir, and was presently found to be dead too. The dog could
have gone back at any moment to the estancia, but his
instinct of attachment overcame all others; he kept guard
over his little master, who slept so soundly and so long, until
he, too, slept in the same way.

A still more remarkable case of this kind was given in one
of my books, of a gaucho, accompanied by his dog, who was
chased and overtaken by a troop of soldiers during one of
the civil wars in Uruguay. Suspecting him of being a spy,
or, at all events, an enemy, his captors cut his throat, then
rode away, calling to the dog to follow them; but the animal
refused to leave his dead master’s side. Returning to the
spot a few days later, they saw the body of the man they
had killed surrounded by a large number of vultures, which
the dog, in a frenzy of excitement, was occupied in keeping
at a respectable distance. It was observed that the dog,
after making one of his sallies, driving the birds away with
furious barkings, would set out at a run toa small stream
Appendix. 389

not far from the spot; but when half way to it he would
look back, and, seeing the vultures advancing once more to
the corpse, would rush back to protect it. The soldiers
watched him for some time with great interest, and once
more they tried in vain to get him to follow them. Two
days afterwards they revisited the spot, to find the dog
lying dead by the side of his dead master. I had this story
from the lips of one of the witnesses.

In all such cases, whether the dog watches over, conceals,
or buries a dead body, he is doubtless moved by the same
instinct which leads him to safeguard the animal he is
attached to—another dog or his human master. But, as
the dead animal is past help, it is, of course, a blunder of
the instinct; and the blunder must be of very much less
frequent occurrence among wild than among domestic
animals. In a state of nature, when a gregarious animal
dies, he dies, as a rule, alone; his body is not seen by his
former companions, and he is not missed. When he dies by
violence—which is the common fate—the body is carried off
or devoured by the killer. This being the usual order, there
is no instinct, except in a very few species, relating to the
disposal of the dead among mammals and other vertebrates,
such as is found in ants and other social insects. There are
a few mammalians that live together in small communities,
in a habitation made to last for many generations, in which
such an instinct would appear necessary, and it accordingly
exists, but is very imperfect. This is the case with the
vizcacha, the large rodent of the pampas, which lives with
its fellows, to the number of twenty or thirty, in a cluster of
huge burrows. When a vizcacha dies in a burrow, the body
is dragged out and thrown on to the mound among the mass
of rubbish collected on it—but not until he has been dead a
long time, and there is nothing left of him but the dry bones
held together by the skin. In that condition the other
members of the community probably cease to look on him as
one of their companions who has fallen into a long sleep; he
is no more than so much rubbish, which must be cleared out
390 Appendix.

of an old disused burrow. Probably the beaver possesses
some rude instinct similar to that of the vizcacha.

Apropos of animals burying their treasures (or connec-
tions) for safety, it is worth mentioning that the skunk of
the pampas occasionally buries her young in the kennel,
when hunger compels her to go out foraging. J had often
heard of this habit of the female skunk from the gauchos,
and one day had the rare good fortune to witness an animal
engaged in obliterating her own kennel. The senses of the
skunk are so defective that one is able at times to approach
very near to without alarming them. In this instance I sat
on my horse at a distance of twenty yards, and watched the
animal at work, drawing in the loose earth with her fore
feet until the entrance to the kennel was filled up to within
three inches of the surface ; then, dropping into the shallow
cavity, she pressed the loose mould down with her nose.
Her task finished, she trotted away, and the hollow in the
soil, when I examined it closely, looked only like the mouth
of an ancient choked-up burrow. The young inhabit a
circular chamber, lined with fine dry grass, at the end of a
narrow passage from 3ft. to 5ft. long, and no doubt have
air enough to serve them until their parent returns; but I

believe the skunk only buries her young when they are very
small.
INDEX,

AQSCHNA BONARIENSIS, 180,

Aguaré, 15.

Aguara-guazi, 15.

Animal weapons, 69-82.

Anumbius acuticaudatus, 147, 253.

Argyroneta, 195.

Armadillo, Hairy, See Dasypus
villosus.

Aspisoma, 169,

Ass defends itself against the puma,
38.

Atticora cyanoleuca, 296, 298.

Audubon and Bachman, on the
puma, 37.

Automalus, 250.

Azara, Felix de, on the habits of
Anumbius, 253; of the oscillating
finch, 263; of the puma, 31, 35,
40; of the tree-creepers, 251; of
the vizcacha, 304, 310.

— Anecdote of caged rats, 343,
344,

Azara’s dog. See Canis azaree.

Bacon, on the dog maintained by
aman, 341.

Bain, Dr. A., on anger, 166.

Baird, Dr. Spencer, on the peregrine
falcon, 97; on the skunk, 119.
Bartlett, Mr., on the Talegallus in

the Zoological Gardens, 87.

Bates, Mr., on wandering bands of
birds, 254,

Belt, on the bush-tick, 142; on the
fire-fly’s light, 171; on man’s
hairless condition, 143; on hum-
minug-birds in Nicaragua, 218;
on wandering bands of birds, 255.

Béte-rouge, 144.

Bicho-colorado, 144.

Bigg- Wither, Mr., on dancing-birds
in Brazil, 262; on fire-flies in
Brazil, 173. ,

Bird-fly. See Ornithomyia.

Birds, on the pampas, 19; aerial
dances of, 265; fear in, 83-100;
affected by fire-light, 176; how
they escape the bush-ticks, 144;
wandering bands of, 252.

 

Black-faced ibis, 265.

Boddam-Whetham, Mr. J. W.,
anecdote of puma, 52.

Bombus thoracicus, 154.

B. violaceus, 154, 157.

Burrowing owl, 24, 66; a snake-
killer, 73.

Burton, Captain, on bush-ticks in
Brazil, 141.

Bush-ticks, 141-145.

Buteo eythronotus, 175.

Byron, Commodore, anecdote of a
great beast in Tierra del Fuego,

Cacuatorge. See Homorus.

Canis azare, 15; death-feigning
a of, 202; preying habits,

00.

C. jubatus, 15.

Carancho, 23, 119.

Carduus mariana, 303.

Cat, anecdotes of the, 60, 61, 73.

Cattle, strangeinstincts of 329-347,

Cavia australis, 18, 64.

Ceratophrys ornata, 78, 79.

Cervus campestris, 16; instincts
of doe and fawn, 110; powerful
smell of buck, 159.

C. paludosus, aquatic habits, 144.

Chaja. See Crested Screamer.

Chauna chavarria. See Crested
Screamer.

Chimango, 23, 91, 98, 94,

Chinchillide, language of, 265.

Chlamydophorus truneata, 16.

Ciconia maguari, 62.

Cinclodes, 242, 248,

Circus cinereus, 94,

C. macropterus, 94,

Cnipolegus hudsoni, antics of, 271.

Cock-of-the-rock, dancing antics,
261.

Cometes, 219.

Coryphistera, 242.

Courlan, 19.

Cow-bird, Common, habits of the
young 90; language and antics,
273.
392

Cow -bird, Screaming,
antics, 273.

Coypii, 11.

Craspedocephalus alternatus, 160.

Cratomorphus, 169.

Crested Screamer, 20; habits of,
221-234.

Ctenomys magellanica, 13.

Cunningham, Dr. on habits of
Oxyurus, 248.

Curtis, Dr., on the Mosquito, 189.

Cynara cardunculus, 302.

dancing

Daines Barrineton, on birds’
sougs, 257.
D’Albertis, on fire-flies in New

Guinea, 173.

Dancing (Music and) in Nature,
261-288.

Darwin, on birds learning their
songs, 257; fear in birds, 88, 89 ;
the gauchos, 351; the huanacos’
dying places, 316, 317; bumble-
bees destroyed by mice, 62;
habits of Oxyurus, 248; the
pampas, 4, 5; persecution of
sick and wounded animals by
their companions, 339, 343;
sexual selection, 208, 2638, 279;
habits of the vizcacha, 289, 304,

Dasypus minutus, 16.

D. tricinctus, 16.

D. villosus, 17; a mouse-catcher,
60; a snake-killer, 60; hunted
by trained dogs, 309.

Death-feigning instincts, 200-204.

Dendrocolaptide, habits of, 235~
260.

Dendrornis, 243, 259.

Didelphys crassicaudata, 18.

D. azare, 18; death-feigning in-
stincts, 202; burdened with its
young, 102.

Dog, dislike of the skunk in, 120;
domineering temper of, 336.

Dolichotis patagonica, 11.

Dolomedes, 195.

De on oven-birds’ singing,
272.

Drymornis, 240.

Dragon-flies, instinctively feared
by gnats, 135; travel before a
south-west wind, 180-134,

Epenratss, 16.
Elanus leucurus, 95.

 

Index.

Epeira, 175; hunted by wasps,
182: protective resemblances in,
183.

Fear, in birds, 88-100; paralyzing
effects of, 201.

Felis concolor.

F. geoffroyi, 14.

F. onca. See Jaguar.

Fire, confusing effect of, at night,
173-177.

Fire-flies, 168-173.

Firewood gatherer.
bius.

Fitzroy, Admiral, on the huanaco,
316; on the puma, 50.

Fleas, 151.

Fowl, cackling instinct of, 112-115.

Fox. See Canis azare.

Freeman, Professor, on the humane
instinct, 347.

Frog, an undescribed species, 75-78.

Furnariusrufus, 242,256; destroyed
by owls, 63; language, 256, 260;
how it protects itself from para-
sites, 145.

See Puma.

See Anum-

GaLICTIS BARBARA, 15; helpless-
ness of young, 104,

Gallus bankiva, its cackling in-
stinct, 115.

Garrod, Dr., on
Screamer, 223.

Gauchos, their treatment of horses,
854,

Gay, Claudio, on the puma, 42.

Geobates, 242.

Geositta cunicularia, 242, 296, 298

Gibson, Mr. Ernest, anecdote of
earancho and skunk, 119.

Golden plover, American, migration
of, 21, 22.

Gossamer spider, 184; migrations
of, 185-188.

Gould, Dr., on humming-birds, 205,
207, 209, 213.

Grass-cat, 14,

Grasshoppers, curious habit of,
373; mimicry and warning
colours in, 124-129.

Guzman, Rui Diaz de, his story of
Maidonada and the puma, 56.

Gynerium argenteun, 6,

the Crested

Hawks, 93.
Henicornis, 242,
Index.

Homoruas, 242, 256; H. gutturalis,
architecture of, 244; language
and antics, 272; H. lophotes,
244,

Horse, 348-362; wild, scarcity of
in Patagonia, 33; coming home
to die, 323.:

Huanaco, strange
314-328

Humble-bees, great increase of, 59;
destroyed by mice, 62; habits of,
154-157; threatening attitudes
of, 192.

Hummine-birds, 205-220.

Huxley, Professor, on the Crested
Screamer, 222.

instinct of,

Inprans, Pampas, their horses, 354.

Instincts of parents and young,
101; mistakes of, 167.

Ixodes. See Bush-ticks.

Jacana, Parra, wing-displaying
performance of, 268.

Jaguar, 14; how hunted, 45 ; para-
lyzed by fear, 201; persecuted
by puma, 35.

Kine, Captain, anecdote of hua-
naco, 316.

Kirby and Spence, on habits of
the bird-fly, 146; on the fire-fly’s
light, 168, 170; on mimicry, 127.

Lacostomus tricHopactytus. See
Vizcacha.

Lambs, helplessness of, 106.

Lang, Mr. A., anecdote of cattle,
344,

Laptasthenura, 238, 255.

Larus maculipennis, 66.

Lefiatero. See Anumbius.
Lichenops _perspicillata, how
caught, 202.

Limnornis, 242.

Limosa hudsonica, migration of,
21, 22.

Lochmias, 249.

Loddigesia mirabilis, 215.

Lophornis, 219.

Lycosa, habits of a, 192.

Macarognis, 240, 250. :

Martin, Mr., on humming-birds,
219.

Mason-wasp, 180.

 

393

Mice, excessive increase of, 60, 67;
parental instincts of, 105.

Military starling, 24.

Milvago chimango. See Chimango.

Mimicry in grasshoppers, 124-129 ;
in a robber-fly, 170; in a snake,
377.

Minera. See Geositta cunicularia.

Mocking-bird, white-banded, me-
lody of, 276,

Molina, on the puma, 33; on the
skunk in Chili, 118; on the
vizcacha’s tail, 75.

Molossus bonariensis, 101.

wee parasitical habits of,

51.

M. bonariensis. See Cow-bird.

Monedula punctata, habits of,
162-166.

Mosquitoes, instinctive fear in,
135; hunger for blood, 138.

Mey Mr. Andrew, on the puma,

1

Music and dancing in Nature,
261-288,

Mygale fusca, 179, 191.

Myiopotamus coypu. See Coypt.

Nasica, 238.

Ocutto, 13.

Oriotrochilus, 219.
Ornithomyia, habits of, 145.
Ornithoptera croesus, 206.
Oscilador, 263.

Otus brachyotus, 62.
Oxypogon, 219.

Oxyurus, 248.

Pampas, description of, 4-9; grass,
6; Indians, 7.

Pampa sheep, 108, 110.

Papa-uira, 254.

Parker, Professor, on rails, 222.

Parra jacana, wing - displaying
performance of, 268; instincts
of young, 111.

Pepris wasp, habits of, 128. :

Peregrine falcon, 32; preying habits
of, 95.

Phaéthornithine, 216.

Pholeus, habits of a, 188, 200.

Pholeoptynx _ cunicularia.
Burrowing Owl. ;

Pigs defend themselves against
puma, 38.

See
394

Polyborinee, 23,

Polyborus tharus. See Carancho.

Porphyriops melanops, 20.

Pracellodomus sibilatrix, architec-
ture, 244.

Pseudocolaptes, 250.

Puma, 14; habits of, 31-58; playful
temper, 280; destructive habits,
299.

Pyrophorus, 169.

QuirquincHo, 16.

RaLLus RYTHYRHYNCHUS, 20.

Rattlesnake, hybernation of, 321.

Rhea americana, 26; hunted with
bolas, 27; habits of young, 85.

Rhomalea speciosa, 127.

Rhynchotus rufescens. See Tina-
mon.

Romanes, Dr., on persecution of
the sick and wounded by animals,
340.

Rostrhamus sociabilis, 95.

Rupicola, dancing antics of, 261.

Ruskin, on colour, 280.

Sauricus, 179, 195.

Schufeldt, Dr., on humming-birds,
209.

Scissors-tail, performance of, 271.

Sclerurus, 240, 249.

Short-eared owl, 62, 63, 66.

Sittosoma, 238.

Skunk, 15; habits of, 116-1238;
degeneracy of, 158.

Snakes, their enemies, 72—75; hy-
bernating habits, 321; mimicry,
374-378.

Sociable hawk, 95.

Sparrow, common, 84.

Spathura, 219.

Spencer, Herbert, on instinctive
fear of man in birds, 99, 100.
Spiders, facts and thoughts about,

176-199.

Spine-tail. See Synallaxis,

Spur-winged lapwing, 20; dances
of, 269.

Stilt, Brazilian, aerial pastimes of,
282.

Stolzman, on wandering bands of
birds, 254.

 

Lndex.

Sulphur tyrant, a snake-killer, 73.

Swan, Black-necked, how taken,
201.

Sycalis luteola, melody of, 274, 285.

Sylviothorynchus, 239.

Synallaxis, architecture of, 244,
247, 369.

8. phryganophila, 244, 249.

TatEcattus, habits of young, 87.

Tatusia hybrida, 16.

Tinamou, rufous, 25; early ma-
turity of, 258.

— spotted, 25; death-feigning
instincts of, 203.

Teguexin lizard, a snake-killer, 74.

Tetragnatha, 183.

Thripodectes flammulatus, 250.

Thurn, Everard im, on humming-
birds, 207.

Trap-door spider, 195.

Tree-creepers. See Dendrocolap-
tides.

Tristram, Canon, on migration, 23,

Tuco-tuco, 13.

UpERCERTHIA, 242,

Van BENEDEN, on mosquitoes, 189,
Vivora de la cruz, 160.
Vizcacha, 9; biography of, 289-3153.

Wattacz, Dr. A. R., on antiquity
of humming-birds,217; on colour,
249, 280, 285.

Waterhouse, on marsupial charac-
ters in the vizcacha, 289-313,
Weissenborn, on migrations of

dragon-flies in Hurope, 133.

Widgeon, Whistling, antics of, 266.

ee See Dendrocolap-
tide.

XeEnops, 240.
Xyphocolaptes, 243.
Xyphorynchus, 238, 243, 260.

Yrsucaua, 20; dances of, 266.
ZENAIDA MACULATA, 63; anecdote

of, 91-93.
Zoniopoda tarsata, habits of, 124

PRINTED BY THE TEMPLE PRESS AT LETCHWORTH IN GREAT BRITAIN
LABORATORY OF ORNITHOLOGY
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
_ ITHACA, NEW YORK
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