MILVAGO CHIMANGO. 79 



ys, the red ants, that make small conical mounds on the pampas, are 

 everywhere seen swarming. Rising high in the air they form a little 

 cloud or column, and hang suspended for hours over the same spot. 

 On such days the Milvagos fare sumptuously on little insects, and 

 under each cloud of winged ants several of them are to be seen in 

 company with a few Flycatchers, or other diminutive species, briskly 

 running about to pick up the falling manna, their enjoyment undis- 

 turbed by any sense of incongruity. 



Before everything, however, the Chimango is a vulture, and is to be 

 found at every solitary rancho sharing with dogs and poultry the offal 

 and waste meat thrown out on the dust-heap ; or, after the flock h is 

 gone to pasture, tearing at the eyes and tongue of a dead lamb in the 

 slieepfold. When the hide has been stripped from a dead horse or cow 

 on the plains, the Chimango is always first on the scene. While feeding 

 on a carcass it incessantly utters a soliloquy of the most lamentable 

 notes, as if protesting against the hard necessity of having to put up 

 with such carrion fare long, querulous cries, resembling the piteous 

 whines of a shivering puppy chained up in a bleak backyard and all its 

 wants neglected, but infinitely more doleful in character. The gauchos 

 have a saying comparing a man who grumbles at good fortune to the 

 Chimango crying on a carcass ; an extremely expressive saying to those 

 who have listened to the distressful wailings of the bird over its meat. 

 Li winter a carcass attracts a great concourse of the Black-backed Gulls ; 

 for with the cold weather these vultures of the sea abandon their 

 breeding-places on the Atlantic shores to wander in search of food over 

 the vast inland pampas. The dead beast is quickly surrounded by a 

 host of them, and the poor Chimango crowded out. One at least, how- 

 ever, is usually to be seen perched on the carcass tearing at the flesh, 

 and at intervals with outstretched neck and ruffled up plumage uttering 

 a succession of its strange wailing cries, reminding one of a public 

 orator mounted on a rostrum and addressing harrowing appeals to a 

 crowd of attentive listeners. When the carcass has been finally aban- 

 doned by foxes, armadillos, gulls, and caracaras, the Chimango still 

 clings sorrowfully to it, eking out a miserable existence by tearing at a 

 fringe of gristle and whetting his hungry beak on the bones. 



Though an inordinate lover of carrion, a wise instinct has taught it 

 that this aliment is unsuited to the tender stomachs of its fledglings ; 

 these it feeds almost exclusively on the young of small birds. In 

 November the Chimangos are seen incessantly beating over the cardoon 

 bushes, after the manner of Hen-harriers; for at this season in the 

 cardoons breeds the Synallaxis hudsoni. This bird, sometimes called 

 Teru-reru del campo by the natives, is excessively shy and mouse-like in 



