334 Bird - Lore 



All night we traveled over the puna at an average elevation of about 13,000 

 feet, arriving the next morning at Uyuni. Here we turned westward. The graz- 

 ing country was now left behind, and for hours we crossed glistening salinas 

 devoid of both plants and birds. 



The boundary line of Bolivia and Chile is marked by the active volcano of 

 Ollague, from the snow-capped cone of which a thin plume of smoke waved 



W- 



LAGO DE SAN PEDRO DE ATACAMA, XGRTII KR X CIIILK, WHERE FLAMINGOES NEST 



TWO MILES ABOVE SEA-LEVEL 



Photographed by H. C. BeUinger 



At this point the descent to the coast begins. The way lies across the desert 

 of Atacama, an essentially rainless region, and one of the most arid in the world. 

 The earth is almost as devoid of vegetation, as naked as it was in the beginning, 

 and the story of its external structure may be read as one passes. On every 

 side are evidences of tremendous volcanic activity, and the still smoking cones 

 of Ollagiie and San Pedro suggest possibilities which forcibly connect the pres- 

 ent with the past. There are lakes thickly encrusted with borax, with open 

 water appearing here and there, as it does through slushy ice in a spring thaw, 

 wide-stretching, hopelessly desolate nitrate fields, and mining 'camps' to mark 

 the mineral wealth hidden in these bare mountains. At one of these 'camps,' 

 the town of Chuquicamata, our Red Cross duties occupied us for a week. 

 Mining engineers and sociologists will find at Chuquicamata object lessons of 

 intense value and interest in the results of American efhciency applied to 

 metallurgical and labor problems, but it is not a productive field for an orni- 

 thologist. Not one bird did I see here during the week of our stay. At the 

 neighboring town of Calama where the Loa supplies water for irrigation. White- 

 throats (Brachyspiza) and Swallows {Atticora cyanoleuca) were abundant 

 and, on the way, two Desert Flycatchers (Muscisaxicola) were seen. These, 

 with two Stilts (Himantopus) and a Duck observed in one of the borax lakes, 

 a Sparrow, a Hawk, and three Turkey Vultures, seen between Calama and 

 Antofogasta, were all the birds recorded between Bolivia and the Pacific coast. 



