130 BIRDS OF LA PLATA 
- 
CRESTED SCREAMER 
Chauna chavaria 
Slatey grey, darker on the back; chin, neck, and cheeks whitish; a 
naked ring round the neck; nape crested ; belly pale grey; feet red; 
length 32, wing Ig inches. 
THIS majestic bird, called Chaja in the vernacular, 
is common throughout the Plata district, in marshes 
and on the open level country abounding in water 
and succulent grasses, and ranges south to the neigh- 
bourhood of Bahia Blanca. It is most abundant on 
the pampas south of Buenos Ayres city, and on that 
vast expanse of perfectly level green country the 
bird is seen at its best; it is there an important 
feature in the landscape; its vocal performances 
are doubly impressive on account of the profound 
silence of nature, and its singularity—the contrast 
between its aerial habit and ponderous structure— 
strikes one more forcibly where the view is so un- 
obstructed and the atmosphere so pure. 
The Crested Screamer, like most of the larger 
birds and mammals in every part of the globe to 
which European emigration is attracted, is probably 
doomed to rapid extermination. My observations 
of the bird, in that portion of the pampas where it 
is most abundant, date back some years, to a time 
when the inhabitants were few and mainly of Spanish 
race, never the destroyers of bird-life. The conditions 
had become extremely favourable to this species. 
