120 IDLE DAYS IN PATAGONIA 



With regard to abnormal whiteness in animals 

 that are familiar to us, the sight always affects us 

 strangely, even in so innocent and insignificant a 

 creature as a starling, or blackbird, or lapwing. 

 The rarity, conspicuousness, and abnormality in 

 color of the object are scarcely enough to account 

 for the intensity of the interest excited. Among 

 savages the distinguishing whiteness is sometimes 

 regarded as supernatural: and this fact inclines 

 me to believe that, just as any extraordinary phe- 

 nomenon produces a vague idea of some one act- 

 ing with a given purpose, so in the case of the 

 white animal, its whiteness has not come by acci- 

 dent and chance, but is the result of the creature 's 

 volition and the outward sign of some excellence 

 of the intelligent soul distinguishing it from its 

 fellows. In Patagonia I heard of a case bearing 

 on this point. On the plain some thirty miles east 

 of Salinas Grandes, in a small band of ostriches 

 there appeared one pure white individual. Some 

 of the Indians, when out hunting, attempted its 

 capture, but they soon ceased to chase it, and it 

 was called thereafter the god of the ostriches, and 

 it was said among them that some great disaster, 

 perhaps death, would overtake any person who 

 should do it harm. 



