COMMON CARRION HAWK 69 



mutilation, and which have grown to strong healthy 

 sheep, though with greatly disfigured faces. One 

 more instance I will give of the boldness of a bird 

 of which A?ara, greatly mistaken, says that it might 

 possibly have courage enough to attack a mouse, 

 though he doubts it. Close to my house, when I 

 was a boy, a pair of these birds had their nest near 

 a narrow path leading through a thicket of giant 

 thistles, and every time I traversed this path the 

 male bird, which, contrary to the rule with birds of 

 prey, is larger and bolder than the female, would 

 rise high above me, then dashing down strike my 

 horse a violent blow on the forehead with its wings. 

 This action it would repeat till I was out of the path. 

 I thought it very strange the bird never struck my 

 head ; but I presently discovered that it had an 

 excellent reason for what it did. The gauchos ride 

 by preference on horses never properly tamed, and 

 one neighbour informed me that he was obliged 

 every day to make a circuit of half a mile round the 

 thistles, as the horses he rode became quite un- 

 manageable in the path, they had been so terrified 

 with the attacks of this Chimango. 



Where the intelligence of the bird appears to be 

 really at fault is in its habit of attacking a sore- 

 backed horse, tempted thereto by the sight of a raw 

 spot, and apparently not understanding that the 

 flesh it wishes to devour is an inseparable part of 

 the whole animal. Darwin has noticed this curi- 

 ous blunder of the bird ; and I have often seen a 

 chafed saddle-horse wildly scouring the plain closely 



