VI A VIOLENT HAIL-STORM 121 



so does the teru-tero. While riding over the grassy plains, one 

 is constantly pursued by these birds, which appear to hate man- 

 kind, and I am sure deserve to be hated for their never-ceasing, 

 unvaried, harsh screams. To the sportsman they are most 

 annoying, by telling every other bird and animal of his approach : 

 to the traveller in the country they may possibly, as Molina 

 says, do good, by warning him of the midnight robber. During 

 the breeding season, they attempt, like our peewits, by feigning 

 to be wounded, to draw away from their nests dogs and 

 other enemies. The eggs of this bird are esteemed a great 

 delicacy. 



September \6tJi. — To the seventh posta at the foot of the 

 Sierra Tapalguen. The country was quite level, with a coarse 

 herbage and a soft peaty soil. The hovel was here remark- 

 ably neat, the posts and rafters being made of about a dozen dry 

 thistle-stalks bound together with thongs of hide ; and by the 

 support of these Ionic-like columns, the roof and sides were 

 thatched with reeds. We were here told a fact, which I would 

 not have credited, if I had not had partly ocular proof of it ; 

 namely, that, during the previous night, hail as large as small 

 apples^xand extremely hard, had fallen with such violence as to 

 kill the greater number of the wild animals. One of the men 

 had already found thirteen deer (Cervus campestris) lying dead, 

 and I saw their /r^j-/^ hides ; another of the party, a few minutes 

 after my arrival, brought in seven more. Now I well know, 

 that one man without dogs could hardly have killed seven deer 

 in a week. The men believed they had seen about fifteen dead 

 ostriches (part of one of which we had for dinner) ; and they 

 said that several were running about evidently blind in one eye. 

 Numbers of smaller birds, as ducks, hawks, and partridges, were 

 killed. I saw one of the latter with a black mark on its back, 

 as if it had been struck with a paving-stone. A fence of thistle- 

 stalks round the hovel was nearly broken down, and my in- 

 former, putting his head out to see what was the matter, received 

 a severe cut, and now wore a bandage. The storm was said to 

 have been of limited extent : we certainly saw from our last 

 night's bivouac a dense cloud and lightning in this direction. It 

 is marvellous how such strong animals as deer could thus have 

 been killed ; but I have no doubt, from the evidence I have 



