164 



Bird - Lore 



of foreigners, but the slight discomforts of the journey are more than offset 

 by the glimpses it affords of Titicacan life, both human and feathered. 



The myriads of water-birds which inhabit the lake congregate chiefly in 

 the shallow bays where there is a dense growth of the reeds from which the 

 natives make their canoe-like balsas. These places are, unfortunately, not 

 visited by the steamer; nevertheless, birds are constantly in sight in varying 

 numbers, both along the shores of the lake and in open water. There were 

 Ducks (chiefly Pintails), Coots, Gulls, Cormorants and Grebes of several species. 

 One of the latter (Centropelma micropterum) furnishes an admirable lesson in 



the effects of disuse, for since its 

 arrival, in the remote past, on 

 Titicaca it has had so little use for 

 its wings in the air that it has lost 

 the power of flight. It is a fairly 

 large bird, about the size of our 

 Holboell's Grebe, but its wings, 

 presumably through disuse as 

 organs of flight, have become too 

 small to raise it in the air. They 

 are actually no longer than those 

 of the small blue-backed Swallows 

 which skim lightly over its head. 

 Possibly these small wings may 

 make more effective paddles under 

 water than would longer ones, but 

 the bird's best efforts on the sur- 

 face bring it only to a half-sitting 

 position when,, with the aid of its 

 feet and a flapping of its stubby wings, it progresses with surprising rapidity, 

 leaving a broad wake and creating a rushing sound, which, on still days, may 

 be heard for some distance. 



I landed one morning while we were discharging freight, which was being 

 transferred to the backs of llamas, burros, and men, and in the patches of 

 purple lupine and the scrubby growth at the foot of a protecting bluff, found 

 numbers of land-birds. There were the omnipresent and always welcome White- 

 throat and House Wren, a large sooty Robin-like Thrush, Swallows, and dipper- 

 like Cinclodes. Only the White-throat and Wren were heard to sing. Indeed, 

 without them the traveler on the treeless shores, slopes, and plateaus of Peru 

 would rarely be cheered by the songs of birds. 



After anchoring off the long stone causeways which formed the ports of 

 four villages on the west shores of the lake, we left Copacabana on the after- 

 noon of December 17, and the following morning we arrived at Guaqui and 

 took the train for La Paz. 



WING OF THE FLIGHTLESS GREBE, COM- 

 PARED WITH THAT OF A SWALLOW (Ailicora) 



