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Bird - Lore 



ing from the air and Cormorants and sea-lions appearing from below — all in 

 pursuit of the unfortunate fish. In places the water was covered with floating 

 islands of Cormorants and the shore was thickly lined with Pelicans and 

 Gannets whose hunger, for the moment, had been appeased. It was a 

 memorable scene. 



Slightly south of this latitude, on August 15, 1916, I saw my first Wander- 

 ing Albatrosses, swinging, circling, sweeping to right or left in broad curves, 

 skimming over the water, disappearing for a moment in the trough of the 

 waves, or tossing suddenly upward to be clearly outlined against the sky with 



THE ACONCAGUA VALLEY. A TYPICAL SCENE, SHOWING THE CHARACTERISTIC 

 BUSHY VEGETATION OF CENTRAL CHILE 



one wing pointing upward, the other down. At all times they faced the gale 

 calmly, serenely, without evident effort, while the steamer labored painfully 

 onward, pitching, rolling, groaning in the toils of the sea. 



We reached Valparaiso January 7, 1919. It was approximately midsummer 

 and compared with conditions which we had found there on August 16, 1916, 

 the harbor was almost without birds. On the last-named date there were, in 

 addition to great numbers of Gulls, Cormorants, and Gannets, hundreds of 

 Penguins. Doubtless in January many of these birds were on their breeding- 

 grounds, while in August they thronged the harbor, just as Herring Gulls, for 

 example, do the harbors on our Atlantic coast in winter. 



We had now entered the northern part of the humid South Temperate 

 Zone, and, as a result of the small annual rainfall, found the hills and plains 

 covered with a bushy, chaparral-like vegetation which, in favorable situations 



