A VIOLENT IIAIL-STORM. 147 



unvaried, harsh screams. To the sportsman they 

 are most annoying, by telling every other bird and 

 animal of his approach ; to the traveller in the 

 country, they may possibly, as Molina says, do 

 good, by warning him of the midnight robber. 

 During the breeding season, they attempt, like our 

 peewits, by feigning to be wounded, to draw away 

 from thir nests dogs and other enemies. The eggs 

 of this bird are esteemed a great delicacy. 



Scjitemhcr IQtJi. — To the seventh posta at the 

 foot of the Sierra Tapalguen. The country was 

 quite level, with a coarse herbage, and a soft, peaty 

 soil. The hovel was here remarkably neat, the posts 

 and i-afters being made of about a dozen dry this- 

 tle-stalks bound together with thongs of hide ; and 

 by the support of these Ionic-like columns, the 

 roof and sides were thatched with reeds. We 

 were here told a fact, which I would not have 

 credited if I had not had partly ocular proof of 

 it, namely, that during the previous night, hail as 

 large as small apples, and extremely hard, had 

 fallen with such violence as to kill the greater num- 

 ber of the wild animals. One of the men had al- 

 ready found thirteen deer (Cervus campestris) ly- 

 ing dead, and I saw their /res/i hides'; another of 

 the party, a few minutes after my arrival, brought 

 in seven more. Now I well know that one man 

 without dogs could hardly have killed seven deer 

 in a week. The men believed they had seen about 

 fifteen dead ostriches (part of one of which we had 

 for dinner) ; and they said that several were run- 

 ning about, evidently blind in one eye. Numbers 

 of smaller birds, as ducks, hawks, and partridges, 

 were killed. I saw one of the latter with a black 

 mark on its back, as if it had been struck with a 

 paving-stone. A fence of thistle-stalks round the 

 hovel was nearly broken down, and my informer, 



