120 THE BOOK OF A NATURALIST 



psychology : he was an example of the powerful 

 effect of the conditions he had been reared'in and 

 of the persistence of habits acquired at an early 

 period after they have ceased to be of any signifi- 

 cance in the creature's life. Every time I was in 

 my gaucho friend's company, when his favourite 

 Cristiano, along with other saddle horses, was 

 standing at the palenque, or row of posts set up 

 before the door of a native rancho for visitors to 

 fasten their horses to, my attention would be 

 attracted to his singular behaviour. His master 

 always tied him to the palenque with a long cabresto, 

 or lariat, to give him plenty of space to move his 

 head and whole body about quite freely. And that 

 was just what he was always doing. A more 

 restless horse I had never seen. His head was 

 always raised as high as he could raise it — like an 

 ostrich, the gauchos would say — his gaze fixed 

 excitedly on some far object ; then presently he 

 would wheel round and stare in another direction, 

 pointing his ears forward to listen intently to some 

 faint far sound, which had touched his sense. The 

 sounds that excited him most were as a rule the 

 alarm cries of lapwings, and the objects he gazed 

 fixedly at with a great show of apprehension 

 would usually turn out to be a horseman on the 

 horizon ; but the sounds and sights would for some 

 time be inaudible and invisible to us on account of 

 their distance. Occasionally, when the bird's alarm 

 cries grew loud and the distant rider was found 

 to be approaching, his excitement would increase 



