268 PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS! GEOGRAPHY. 



bolas are used, not alone in capturing large animals, but small birds as 

 well. I have seen as many as three of the grouse-like plover that fre- 

 quent this region taken at a single cast of these bolas. The plan 

 adopted in such cases was as follows : The sportsman, observing at a dis- 

 tance of a hundred yards or more, a covey of these birds feeding on the 

 pampa, would check the speed of his horse and, in an incredibly short 

 time, have the bolas ready for action, swinging rapidly above his head. 

 Then, urging his horse at full speed toward the birds, just as they were 

 in the act of springing from the ground, the bolas would be thrown, 

 and, whirling rapidly through the air, would be almost sure to disable 

 one or more of the flock. Whatever may be said of the primitive meth- 

 ods and implements employed in the chase by these Indians, it must be 

 conceded that they are efficient, and, from the standpoint of true sports- 

 manship, much superior to those of the so-called civilized sportsman, 

 who, with a modern repeating ten-bore shotgun, massacres quail along 

 the hedge rows of North Carolina, or canvas-back duck, from cover and 

 aided by decoys, about the shores of the Chesapeake. Indeed, it would 

 even put to shame the hunter of big game, who, with especially designed 

 firearms, slaughters elephants and other quadrupeds from a safe distance 

 in the jungles of Africa, or musk-ox on the barren lands of northern Can- 

 ada, leaving their carcasses to rot where they have fallen, and for no other 

 purpose, apparently, than to appease a certain morbid propensity for 

 slaughter, to secure a few photographs illustrating the same, and return 

 to write a series of popular magazine articles and attain thereby a some- 

 what questionable notoriety. 



While the Tehuelche thus finds wholesome employment throughout the 

 year in hunting the guanaco and rhea, there is for him one particularly 

 busy season, known throughout Patagonia as the guanaco chico season. It 

 is the harvest time of the Tehuelche. While the coverings of the tents 

 or toldos of these Indians are made of the skins of the adult guanaco 

 carefully and strongly sewed together, their clothing and bedding are, for 

 the most part, made of the skins of the young animals. For such pur- 

 poses only the skins of such as are less than two months old are employed 

 and the very choicest of these fur mantles are manufactured from the skins 

 of the still unborn young. These are obtained by killing the mother a 

 few days before the birth of the young guanaco. The guanaco chico season 

 may be said to extend from November fifteenth to February first. It 



