POLYBORUS THA11US. 83 



In uninhabited places I have always found the Caranchos just as 

 abundant as in the settled districts ; and after a deer has been pulled 

 down by the dogs I have seen as many as seventy or eighty birds con- 

 gregate to feed on its flesh within half an hour, although not one had 

 been previously visible. D'Orbigny describes the bird as a parasite on 

 man, savage and civilized, following him everywhere to feed on the 

 leavings when he slays wild or domestic animals, and as being scarcely 

 able to exist without him. No doubt the bird does follow man greatly to 

 its advantage, but this is only in very thinly settled and purely pastoral 

 and hunting districts, where a large proportion of the flesh of every 

 animal slain is given to the fowls of the air. "Where the population 

 increases the Carancho quickly meets with the fate of all large species 

 which are regarded as prejudicial. 



Without doubt it is a carrion-eater, but only, I believe, when it 

 cannot get fresh provisions ; for when famished it will eat anything 

 rather than study its dignity and suffer hunger like the nobler Eagle. 

 I have frequently seen one or two or three of them together on the 

 ground under a column of winged ants, eagerly feasting on the falling 

 insects. To eat putrid meat it must be very hungry indeed; it is, 

 however, amazingly fond of freshly-killed flesh, and when a cow is 

 slaughtered at an estancia-house the Carancho quickly appears on the 

 scene to claim his share, and catching up the first thing he can lift he 

 carries it off before the dogs can deprive him of it. When he has risen 

 to a height of five or six yards in the air he drops the meat from his 

 beak and dexterously catches it in his claws without pausing or swerving 

 in his flight. It is singular that the bird seems quite incapable of 

 lifting anything from the ground with the claws, the beak being in- 

 variably used, even when the prey is an animal which it might seem 

 dangerous to lift in this way. I once saw one of these birds swoop down 

 on a rat from a distance of about forty feet, and rise with its struggling 

 and squealing prey to a height of twenty feet, then drop it from its beak 

 and gracefully catch it in its talons. Yet when it pursues and overtakes 

 a bird in the air it invariably uses the claws in the same way as other 

 Hawks. This I have frequently observed, and I give the two following 

 anecdotes to show that even birds which one would imagine to be 

 quite safe from the Carancho are on some occasions attacked by it. 



While walking in a waste field near my home one day I came on a 

 Pigeon feeding, and at once recognized it as one which had only began 

 to fly about a week before ; for although a large number of Pigeons 

 were kept, this bird happened to be of the purest unspotted white, and 

 for a long time I had been endeavouring to preserve and increase the 

 pure white individuals, but with very little success, for the Peregraies 



