254 



THROUGH THE HEART OF PATAGONIA 



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IIKAO OK (;UANACO 



plains of Patagonia. In m\' experience they were most numerous 

 in the Cahadou Davis, in the nei^jhbourhood of Bahia Camerones, 

 and on the high l^asaltic tablelands to the south of Lake Buenos 



Aires. At the base 

 of the Cordillera and 

 in some of the river- 

 valleys under the 

 edge of the moun- 

 tains, the range of 

 the guanaco crosses 

 that of the huemul. 

 I do not think, 

 however, that the 

 guanacos ever enter 

 the forest, although 

 I have seen them in 

 the open patches 

 amonorst the lower 

 wooded parts of the Cordillera. As the seasons change they move 

 from higher to lower ground, but these migrations are limited, and 

 a white guanaco has been observed year after year in the same 

 neighbourhood. During the time I spent at Lake Argentino — 

 from P'ebruary i to May 15 — I saw but few of these animals, for 

 at that season all the herds migrate to the high pampa. A herd 

 four or five hundred strong inhabited tl.e higher plateaus of 

 Mount Frias. 



FltzRoy, in his "Voyages of the AdventtLre and the BcagU\'' 

 writes, " Do the guanacos approach the river to drink when 

 they are dying } or are the bones and remains of animals eaten 

 by lions or by Indians.^ or are they washed together by floods.'* 

 Certain it is that they are remarkably numerous near the banks of 

 the river (Santa Cruz), but not so elsewhere." It is true that, 

 although one comes upon skeletons of these animals upon the 

 pampas, they are not crowded together as they are in the 

 canadones of the rivers or by the lakes near water. At the edge 

 ot" a lagoon at the eastern end of Mystery Plain I saw a great 

 number of skeletons in one place, possibly the very ones noted by 



