74 FALCONID^E. 



So long as they kept away five or six feet from it the Hawk remained 

 motionless, only hissing and snapping occasionally as a warning ; but 

 whenever a Cuckoo ventured a little nearer and into the charmed circle, 

 it would make a sudden rapid dash and buffet the intruder violently 

 back to a proper distance, returning afterwards to its own stand. 



309. MILVAGO CHIMANGO (Vieill.). 

 (CHIMANGO CARRION-HAWK.) 



Milvago chimango, Scl. et Sale. Nomencl. p. 122; Durnford, Ibis, 1877, p. 40 

 (Ckupat), et p. 188 (Buenos Ayres), et 1878, p. 398 (Centr. Patagonia) ; 

 Gibson, Ibis, 1879, p. 420 (Buenos Ayres); Harroios, Auk, 1884, p. Ill 

 (Entrerios) ; Withinyton, Ibis, 1888, p. 470 (Lomas de Zamora). Ibycter 

 chimango, Sharpe, Cat. B. i. p. 41. Milvago pezoporus, Burm. La- 

 Plata Reise, ii. p. 434 (La Plata). 



Description. Above reddish brown, with ashy edgings to the feathers ; rump 

 greyish white; greater wing-coverts white, with slight, brown cross bars; pri- 

 maries dark brown, externally at their bases freckled with grey ; inner webs at 

 their bases white ; tail greyish white, with numerous freckles and narrow bands 

 of brownish grey : beneath grey, deeply tinged with rufous on the throat and 

 breast ; crissum nearly white ; under wing-coverts deep rufous ; bill pale yel- 

 lowish ; feet olive : whole length 15-0 inches, wing 11-0, tail 6-5. Female similar. 



Hob. Southern half of South America. 



Azara says of the Carancho (Polyborus tharus) : " All methods of 

 subsistence are known to this bird : it pries into, understands, and takes 

 advantage of everything." These words apply better to the Chiraango, 

 which has probably the largest bill of fare of any bird, and has grafted 

 on to its own peculiar manner of life the habits of twenty diverse 

 species. By turns it is a falcon, a vulture, an insect-eater, and a vege- 

 table-eater. On the same day you will see one bird in violent hawk-like 

 pursuit of its living prey, with all the instincts of rapine hot within it, 

 and another less ambitious individual engaged in laboriously tearing at 

 an old cast-off shoe, uttering mournful notes the while, but probably 

 more concerned at the tenacity of the material than at its indiges- 

 tibility. 



A species so cosmopolitan in its tastes might have had a whole 

 volume to itself in England ; being only a poor foreigner, it has had 

 no more than a few unfriendly paragraphs bestowed upon it For it 

 happens to be a member of that South- American subfamily of which 

 even grave naturalists have spoken slightingly, calling them vile, cow- 

 ardly, contemptible birds ; and the Chimango is nearly least of them all 



