1918.J Cape San Antonio, Buenos Ayres. 413 



Mr. Hudson explains, the birds would be handicapped in 

 rising with their building-material of small but rather long 

 sticks. But the trees bordering the woods, and particularly- 

 isolated clumps or individual stunted Tala trees (though 

 only five or six feet liigh) have all from one to three or four 

 nests, a fresh one being built each season or the old one 

 repaired ; and in view of the size of these, and the thin 

 foliage of Tala celtis (or in other cases the poplar), they 

 are particularly conspicuous. There are three species 

 of birds whose nests do not require to be sought, for in 

 number and prominence of feature they positively " throw " 

 themselves at one ; namely, the Firewood-gatherer, the 

 Bienteveo Tyrant {Pitangus bolivianus), and the Red Oven- 

 bird {Furnarius rufus). In material they are extraordinarily 

 divergent, and might be typically described as " a pile of 

 sticks/'' " a rag-bundle," and " a mud-pie." 



Telegraph-posts are a favourite site for the -Firewood- 

 gatherer's nest, and on many stretches of the railway the 

 traveller in the train wonders if there is actually a nest to 

 every post, or if he is obsessed by the same one post and 

 nest — a freak of the eye's retina. At one bran-new station 

 on a southern railway-line, the company had planted an 

 equally recent row of silver-poplars just outside the wooden 

 railing which guarded the platform ; these were not more 

 than six or seven feet high, and in the featherduster-top of 

 one of these methodically-pruned saplings, I was amused to 

 find a pair of " Lefiateros " with a nearly completed nest, 

 quite regardless of train-traffic and passenger concourse. 

 In parenthesis again, I should like to state how railway- 

 stations in the Pampa territory (and doubtless in other 

 similar parts of the world) play an interesting and im- 

 portant part in the development and protection of bird-life. 

 As plantations spring up, the necessary covert and nesting- 

 sites are provided ; whilst the overflow from the accom- 

 panying wells and water- tanks supplies another necessary 

 element of life. During the great four-years' drought of 

 1908-11, the latter feature was particularly noticeable. 



The look-out ladder in the Yugleses patio has generally a 



