1919-] Cape San Antonio. Buenos Ayres. 503 



modification : — In 1872, wlien I first went to tlie Yngleses, 

 I found the Parrakeet nesting in the garden aiul of course 

 the surrounding woods o£ the head-station. Besides the 

 larger structures in the higher trees there were innumerable 

 newer and smaller ones suspended from the lower branches 

 of the Tala and Coronillo trees — frequently to be easily 

 reached from the ground. In 1884 I succeeded in banishing 

 tlie fruit-marauders out of the garden, and undertook a 

 systematic campaign against the denizens of the woods. 

 The plan was to send a couple of peones, armed with long 

 bamboos, on the extremity of which they wrapped some tow, 

 and by this means set tire to the nests. By undertaking 

 the operation in the first half of Decembei" — just before 

 the eggs were laid — there remained no time available 

 for the construction of a fresh nest and the rearing of a 

 brood the same season ; nor. given the general situation of 

 the nests at the end of a branch, did the tree suff'er any 

 damage. Occasionally a Gaucho would perhaps find some 

 difficulty in riding his half-tamed colt througli the woods 

 on his way to the head-station, and as he glanced at the 

 crackling fires in the trees (the cause of his mount " trying 

 to take two sides of the road at once '') would mutter to 

 himself ''cosas de Don Ernesto'^ — ''some of Don Ernesto's 

 little jokes." 



The modus operandi was quite successful, and in the 

 course of. a few years the Cotorras became reduced to a 

 merely ornamental quantity (a note in my ornithological 

 diary about that time says '' Destroyed all Parrakeet nests 

 in woods. Mem.: Some fifty opossums {Didelphis am'iia) 

 were killed as they left the burning nests "). 



But it so happened that in 1872 there were three one-year- 

 old Eucalyptus trees in the garden, the first grown in the 

 district. These showed such rapid growth and adaptability 

 that from the year 1880 many hundreds were subsequently 

 planted — forming woods, groups, and avenues. In twenty 

 years or more, many of these attained a height of perliaps 

 a hundred feet (one such grove is visible at least twelve 

 miles away), and the Cotorras have taken advantage thereof 



