COMMON CARRION HAWK 69 
mutilation, and which have grown to strong healthy 
sheep, though with greatly disfigured faces. One 
more instance I will give of the boldness of a bird 
of which Azara, greatly mistaken, says that it might 
possibly have courage enough to attack a mouse, 
though he doubts it. Close to my house, when I 
was a boy, a pair of these birds had their nest near 
a narrow path leading through a thicket of giant 
thistles, and every time I traversed this path the 
male bird, which, contrary to the rule with birds of 
prey, is larger and bolder than the female, would 
rise high above me, then dashing down strike my 
horse a violent blow on the forehead with its wings. 
This action it would repeat till I was out of the path. 
I thought it very strange the bird never struck my 
head; but I presently discovered that it had an 
excellent reason for what it did. The gauchos ride 
by preference on horses never properly tamed, and 
one neighbour informed me that he was obliged 
every day to make a circuit of half a mile round the 
thistles, as the horses he rode became quite un- 
manageable in the path, they had been so terrified 
with the attacks of this Chimango. 
Where the intelligence of the bird appears to be 
really at fault is in its habit of attacking a sore- 
backed horse, tempted thereto by the sight of a raw 
spot, and apparently not understanding that the 
flesh it wishes to devour is an inseparable part of 
the whole animal. Darwin has noticed this curi- 
ous blunder of the bird; and I have often seen a 
chafed saddle-horse wildly scouring the plain closely 
