228 The Naturalist in La Plata. 



water in the rushy pools, though it was at the 

 height of the dry season. This whole plain was 

 covered with an endless flock of chakars, not in 

 close order, but scattered about in pairs and small 

 groups. In this desolate spot I found a small 

 rancho inhabited by a gaucho and his family, and I 

 spent the night with them. The birds were all 

 about the house, apparently as tame as the domestic 

 fowls, and when I went out to look for a spot for 

 my horse to feed on, they would not fly away from 

 me, but merely moved a few steps out of my path 

 About nine o'clock we were eating supper in the 

 rancho when suddenly the entire multitude of birds 

 covering the marsh for miles around burst forth 

 into a tremendous evening song. It is impossible 

 to describe the effect of this mighty rush of sound ; 

 but let the reader try to imagine half-a-million 

 voices, each far more powerful than that one which 

 makes itself heard all over Regent's Park, bursting 

 forth on the silent atmosphere of that dark lonely 

 plain. One peculiarity was that in this mighty 

 noise, which sounded louder than the sea thunder- 

 ing on a rocky coast, I seemed to be able to dis- 

 tinguish hundreds, even thousands, of individual 

 voices. Forgetting my supper, I sat motionless 

 and overcome with astonishment, while the air, and 

 even the frail rancho, seemed to be trembling in 

 that tempest of sound. When it ceased my host 

 remarked with a smile, " We are accustomed to 

 this, serior every evening we have this concert." 

 It was a concert well worth riding a hundred miles 

 to hear. But the chakar country is just now in a 

 transitional state, and the precise conditions which 



