53 BIRDS OF LA PLATA 



and though he does not tell us what led him to form 

 such a conclusion, I have no doubt that it was because 

 the Eagle or Eagles he obtained had the skunk-smell 

 on their plumage. Most of the Eagles I shot in Pata- 

 gonia, including about a dozen Chilian Eagles, smelt 

 of skunk, the smell being in most cases old and faint. 

 Of two Crowned Harpieis obtained, only one smelt 

 of skunk. This only shows that in Patagonia Eagles 

 attack the skunk, which is not strange considering 

 that it is of a suitable size and conspicuously marked ; 

 that it goes about fearlessly in the daytime and is the 

 most abundant animal, the small cavy excepted, in 

 that sterile cotmtry. But whether the Eagles succeed 

 in their attacks on it is a very different matter. The 

 probability is that when an Eagle, incited by the 

 pangs of hunger, commits so great a mistake as to 

 attack a skunk, the pestilent fluid, which has the 

 same terribly burning and nauseating effects on the 

 lower animals as on man, very quickly makes it 

 abandon the contest. It is certain that pumas make 

 the same mistake as the Eagles do, for in some that 

 are caught the fur smells strongly of skunk. It might 

 be said that the fact that many Eagles smell of skunk 

 serves to show that they do feed on them, for other- 

 wise they would learn by experience to avoid so dan- 

 gerous an animal, and the smell of a first encounter 

 would soon wear off. I do not think that hungry 

 birds of prey, in a barren country like Patagonia, 

 would learn from one repulse, or even from several, 

 the fruitlessness and danger of such attacks ; while 

 the smell is so marvellously persistent that one or 



