i8 BIRDS OF LA PLATA 



approached all the birds break out into a chorus of 

 alarm, with rattling notes so annoyingly loud and 

 sustained that the intruder, be it man or beast, is 

 generally glad to htirry out of ear-shot. As the 

 breeding-season approaches they are heard, probably 

 the males, to utter a variety of soft low chattering 

 notes, sounding sometimes like a person laughing 

 and crying together : the flock then breaks up into 

 pairs, the birds becoming silent and very circum- 

 spect in their movements. The nest is usually built 

 in a thorn-tree, of rather large sticks, a rough large 

 structure, the inside often lined with green leaves 

 plucked from the trees. The eggs are large for the 

 bird, and usually six or seven in number ; but the 

 number varies greatly, and I have known one bird 

 lay as many as fourteen. They are elliptical in form 

 and beautiful beyond comparison, being of an ex- 

 quisite turquoise-blue, the whole shell roughly 

 spattered with white. The white spots are composed 

 of a soft calcareous substance, apparently deposited 

 on the surface of the shell after its complete forma- 

 tion : they are raised, and look like snow-flakes, and 

 when the egg is fresh-laid may be easily washed off 

 with cold water, and are so extremely delicate that 

 their purity is lost on the egg being taken into the 

 hand. The young birds hatched from these lovely 

 eggs are proverbial for their ugliness, Pichon de 

 Urraca being a term of contempt commonly applied 

 to a person remarkable for want of comeliness. They 

 are as unclean as they are ugly, so that the nest, 

 usually containing six or seven young, is unpleasant 



