228 The Naturalist in La Plata. 
water in the rushy pools, though it was at the 
height of the dry season. This whole plain was 
covered with an endless flock of chakars, not in 
close order, but scattered about in pairs and small 
groups. In this desolate spot I found a small 
rancho inhabited by a gaucho and his family, and I 
spent the night with them. The birds were all 
about the house, apparently as tame as the domestic 
fowls, and when I went out to look for a spot for 
my horse to feed on, they would not fly away from 
me, but merely moved a few steps out of my path. 
About nine o’clock we were eating supper in the 
rancho when suddenly the entire multitude of birds 
covering the marsh for miles around burst forth 
into a tremendous evening song. It is impossible 
to describe the effect of this mighty rush of sound ; 
but let the reader try to imagine _half-a-million 
voices, each far more powerful than that one which 
makes itself heard all over Regent’s Park, bursting 
forth on the silent atmosphere of that dark lonely 
plain. One peculiarity was that in this mighty 
noise, which sounded louder than the sea thunder- 
ing on a rocky coast, | seemed to be able to dis- 
tinguish hundreds, even thousands, of individual 
voices. Forgetting my supper, I sat motionless 
and overcome with astonishment, while the air, and 
even the frail rancho, seemed to be trembling in 
that tempest of sound. When it ceased my host 
remarked with a smile, ‘‘ We are accustomed to 
this, sefior—every evening we have this concert.” 
It was a concert well worth riding a hundred miles 
to hear. But the chakar country is just now in a 
transitional state, and the precise conditions which 
