COMMON CARRION HAWK 71 



Before everything, however, the Chimango is a 

 vulture, and is to be found at every solitary rancho 

 sharing with dogs and poultry the offal and waste 

 meat thrown out on the dust-heap; or, after the 

 flock has gone to pasture, tearing at the eyes and 

 tongue of a dead lamb in the sheepfold. When the 

 hide has been stripped from a dead horse or cow on 

 the plains, the Chimango is always first on the scene. 

 While feeding on a carcase it incessantly utters a 

 soliloquy of the most lamentable notes, as if pro- 

 testing against the hard necessity of having to put 

 up with such carrion fare — ^long querulous cries 

 resembling the piteous whines of a shivering puppy 

 chained up in a bleak backyard and all its wants 

 neglected, but infinitely more doleful in character. 

 The gauchos have a saying comparing a man who 

 grumbles at good fortune to the Chimango crying 

 on a carcase — an extremely expressive saying to 

 those who have listened to the distressful wailings 

 of the bird over its meat. In winter a carcase attracts 

 a great concourse of the Black-backed Gulls ; for 

 with the cold weather these Vultures of the sea 

 abandon their breeding-places on the Atlantic shores 

 to wander in search of food over the vast inland 

 pampas. The dead beast is quickly surrounded by a 

 host of them, and the poor Chimango crowded out. 

 One at least, however, is usually to be seen perched 

 on the carcase tearing at the flesh, and at intervals 

 with outstretched neck and ruffled-up plumage 

 uttering a succession of its strange wailing cries, 

 reminding one of a public orator mounted on a 



