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THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



Atocha Ave had heard Ave could get good 

 hotel accommodations. We finally found that 

 the accommodations were a mud-floored 

 shack with a room about twelve by twenty- 

 four feet, containing ten cot beds. From 

 Atocha a coach road leads to La Quiaca on 

 the northern frontier of the Argentine. We 

 left early one freezing morning, but suf- 

 fered much distress on the journey because 

 of the volumes of choking, blinding dust, 

 which enveloped the coach from the start 

 until we finally halted for the night at one 

 of the little Bolivian towns. 



From La Quiaca railroad transportation 

 can be secured to Buenos Aires. It was to 

 this city that the American Museum had 

 forwarded a new outfit for me. Having 

 reached Buenos Aires, and the mouth of the 

 Parana River, I felt that I was finally em- 

 barked on the more important work of my 

 exjjedition. As soon as I could make arrange- 

 ments, I secured a steamer going up the 

 Paraguay River, my first stop being at 

 Asuncion, where I had to remain a few days 

 waiting for a boat that would carry me 

 farther up the river. Collecting on this part 

 of the journey began at Puerto Pinasco, in 

 the Paraguayan chaco, a region in which 

 little zoological work has been done. Dur- 

 ing the first Roosevelt trip Mr. Miller and I 

 had made a short excursion from Asuncion 

 up the Pilcomayo River, the result of which 

 proved so interesting that I was anxious to 

 know more of the region. Probably one of 

 the principal reasons that little is known of 

 the chaco, is that the Indians throughout 

 that region have been more successful than 

 the natives in any other part of South 

 America in retarding inroads by Europeans. 

 Many expeditions which have started into 

 the chaco region have been annihilated. 

 Even today, although cattle ranches have 

 been founded at one point or another, and 

 companies formed for the exploitation of 

 quebracho, for tanning leather, there is real 

 danger from Indian attacks if one goes any 

 distance back from the Paraguay River. 



From Puerto Pinasco (the property of 

 an American syndicate), there is a service 

 railway running inland for a distance of 

 about twenty-five miles, and from there on, 

 a good cattle trail for another twenty-five 

 miles into the interior, where is located a 

 large cattle ranch at a point knoAvn as Fort 

 Wheeler. Between Puerto Pinasco and Fort 

 Wheeler I spent about two months collecting 



birds and making a careful study of bird 

 habits. I was successful in obtaining 

 pictures of a number of species Avhich 

 have never previously been photographed. 

 I also found many nests and eggs of rare 

 forms. At Puerto Pinasco I was much inter- 

 ested to find flocks of a species of parrakeet 

 associating with flocks of cow-birds all feed- 

 ing on the ground. They wandered about, 

 folloAving grazing cattle, walking, not hop- 

 ping, and apparently feeding on whatever 

 vegetable or animal substances they could 

 secure. These were the same parrakeets that 

 later I found constructing great colonj' nests, 

 occupied b}^ from two or three pairs to one 

 hundred pairs of birds. These nests had 

 separate entrance ways into nursery cham- 

 bers where from one to four or five families 

 Avere reared. I found that these parrakeets 

 began the construction of the nest at the 

 roof instead of at the foundation, contrary 

 to most nest-building operations, and not 

 infrequently used one of the large platform 

 nests of the giant jabiru storks as a roof 

 for their apartment dAvelling. 



I succeeded in getting many interesting 

 pictures of rheas while in the chaco region. 

 At the time of the Roosevelt Expedition, 

 during our stop at Buenos Aires, we visited 

 some of the large fur houses and saAv thou- 

 sands upon thousands of bales of rhea 

 plumes, and learned that for years the In- 

 dians and other native hunters had been 

 hunting these birds ruthlessly. It did not 

 seem possible that such enormous quantities 

 of plumes could have been secured without 

 depleting the rhea population, but we found 

 them very abundant indeed, scarcely a morn- 

 ing passing Avithout our seeing nests and sin- 

 gle eggs scattered here and there across the 

 open campo. Day after day the Indians 

 brought to camp loads of eggs that they had 

 taken from nests. As is Avell knoAvn, several 

 females lay eggs in the same nest, but in- 

 cubation is attended to by the male bird 

 only. He also takes care of the young. I 

 found one nest containing thirty-seven eggs, 

 and many others Avith a less number. 



In October I embarked on a small 

 steamer that carried me farther up the 

 Paraguay River to Corumba, Brazil. At Agua 

 Blanea, three or four hours above Corumba, 

 I did my next collecting. Later I ascended 

 the river for a distance of about five hun- 

 dred miles to one of the large cattle fazen- 

 das, property of the Farquhar syndicate. 



