Ornithological and Other Oddities 



carancho actually followed him about, attacking 

 the eggs as the birds were driven off their nests, 

 and refusing to be driven off itself until hit by 

 the butt-end of a knife flung at it by the exas- 

 perated oologist. This intelligent and irritating 

 grasp of the situation exactly recalls the behaviour 

 of the house-crow of India, which is positively 

 insolent as long as one is unarmed, but knows 

 and fears a gun ; and a similar wisdom in our 

 rooks at home has given rise to the saying that 

 they can smell powder. 



Of course, with a character of this kind, it is a 

 foregone conclusion that the caracara should be 

 a determined enemy to young birds. Mr. Hudson 

 gives a pathetic instance wherein a rhea — the 

 South American ostrich — having left the young 

 it was brooding to charge a passing horseman, 

 found on its return the little things being 

 mercilessly slaughtered by these carrion-hawks, 

 which had been waiting all along for some such 

 opportunity. This continual watchfulness is ex- 

 emplified by the caracara's well-known habit of 

 settling near when it observes a man sleeping 

 on the Pampas, in the charitable hope that he 

 will never wake up again ! And the same gloomy 

 anticipation occurs with the raven, which it is 

 said to be possible to decoy within shot-range 

 by lying down and feigning death. 



In voice the caracara is not at all crow-like, 



