52 BIRDS OF LA PLATA 
and though he does not tell us what led him to form 
such a conclusion, I have no doubt that it was because 
the Eagle or Eagles he obtained had the skunk-smell 
on their plumage. Most of the Eagles I shot in Pata- 
gonia, including about a dozen Chilian Eagles, smelt 
of skunk, the smell being in most cases old and faint. 
Of two Crowned Harpies obtained, only one smelt 
of skunk. This only shows that in Patagonia Eagles 
attack the skunk, which is not strange considering 
that it is of a suitable size and conspicuously marked ; 
that it goes about fearlessly in the daytime and is the 
most abundant animal, the small cavy excepted, in 
that sterile country. But whether the Eagles succeed 
in their attacks on it is a very different matter. The 
probability is that when an Eagle, incited by the 
pangs of hunger, commits so great a mistake as to 
attack a skunk, the pestilent fluid, which has the 
same terribly burning and nauseating effects on the 
lower animals as on man, very quickly makes it 
abandon the contest. It is certain that pumas make 
the same mistake as the Eagles do, for in some that 
are caught the fur smells strongly of skunk. It might 
be said that the fact that many Eagles smell of skunk 
serves to show that they do feed on them, for other- 
wise they would learn by experience to avoid so dan- 
gerous an animal, and the smell of a first encounter 
would soon wear off. I do not think that hungry 
birds of prey, in a barren country like Patagonia, 
would learn from one repulse, or even from several, 
the fruitlessness and danger of such attacks; while 
the smell is so marvellously persistent that one or 
