i62 Bird - Lore 



mer (December 15) and although there were patches of snow along the track 

 at Cruccro Alto, only the summits of the mountains about the lakes were snow- 

 covered. 



From the (rain one sees small groui)s of Ducks and scattered Coots on the 

 lakes, and a pearl-backed, white-winged Gull, known only from the high 

 Andes, seems far more at home over these bodies of water than when seen in 

 the puna marshes or following the comse of a roaring moiinlain stream through 

 a narrow, high-walled canon. 



liut the supreme and sur|)rising experience for the ornithologist in these 

 bleak heights is the sight of a flock of Flamingoes. To find these birds, which 

 we are accustomed to associate with tropical surroundings, in this cold tem- 

 l)crate zone, feeding in lagoons where, in the winter, ice forms fre(|uently, and 

 snow falls not rarely, is one of the anomalies of bird distribution. From Lake 

 Junin, in central i*eru, southward to at least central Chile, Flamingoes are 

 permanent residents of the lakes and lagoons of the high Andes. They are 

 found also on the pampas of northwestern Argentina, and southward into 

 Patagonia. No Flamingoes arc known between Peru and the southern borders 

 of the Caribbean Sea, and the |)rol)lem of their distribution calls for an explana- 

 tion of their presence south of the Equator as wc>ll as for their existence almost 

 up to the limits of perpetual snow. 



It is far too complicated a question to be disc ussed during tiie course of this 

 informal narrative, but it may at least be said that there is much evidence in 

 favor of the theory that the Flamingoes, with some other forms of life inhabit- 

 ing these Andean lakes, have risen from sea-level to their present high altitude, 

 through that elevation of the earth's surface in which the Andes have their 

 origin. In i()i6, 1 saw Flamingoes from the train in one of the lakes mentioned 

 above, on the tableland north of Juliaca, and we found them also at a small 

 lake east of Tirajiata. 



The Herons, Ibises, and Geese are sur|)risingly tame and are often seen 

 about the outskirts of villages, but the Flamingoes, although they apparently 

 are not pursued by man, show a lack of conlideiue in him whicii induces them 

 to take ilight long before one comes within gunshot. No one seemed to know 

 when or where the Flamingoes nested, but it should not. be diihcult to find 

 their breeding-grounds. 



The voyage across Lake Titicaca is designed to speed the traveler on his 

 way rather than to give him an opportunity to see this beautiful body of 

 water, with its Inca-lerraced islands, its i)ast()ral shores and, toward the east, 

 stupendous wall of snow-covered mountains. The through steamer leaves Puno 

 at nightfall, on the arrival of the train from Arequipa, and reaches Guaqui on 

 the Bolivian side of the lake the following morning at 7 o'clock. A smaller 

 steaiper, which dehvers freight at the small Indian villages on the lake, takes 

 three days for the same trip. Only native passengers are expected to patron- 

 ize this l)oat, and the food is designed to meet their tastes rather than those 



