1832-3.] CARRION HAWKS. 5E 
warbling. It is heard only during the spring. At other times 
its cry is harsh and far from harmonious. Near Maldonado 
these birds were tame and bold; they constantly attended the 
country houses in numbers, to pick the meat which was hung 
up on the posts or walls: if any other small bird joined the 
feast, the Calandria soon chased it away. On the wide un- 
inhabited plains of Patagonia another closely allied species, 
O. Patagonica of d’Orbigny, which frequents the valleys clothed 
with spiny bushes, is a wilder bird, and has a slightly different 
tone of voice. It appears to me a curious circumstance, as 
showing the fine shades of difference in habits, that judging from 
this latter respect alone, when I first saw this second species, I 
thought it was different from the Maldonado kind. Having 
afterwards procured a specimen, and comparing the two without 
particular care, they appeared so very similar, that I changed my 
opinion ; but now Mr. Gould says that they are certainly dis- 
tinct ; a conclusion’ in conformity with the trifling difference of 
habit, of which, however, he was not aware. 
The number, tameness, and disgusting habits of the carrion- 
feeding hawks of South America make them pre-eminently strik- 
ing to any one accustomed only to the birds of Northern Europe. 
In this list may be included four species of the Caracara or Poly- 
borus, the Turkey buzzard, the Gallinazo, and the Condor. The 
Caracaras are, from their structure, placed among the eagles: we 
shall soon see how ill they become so high a rank. In their 
habits. they well supply the place of our carrion-crows, magpies, 
and ravens; a tribe of birds widely distributed over the rest of 
the world, but entirely absent in South America. To begin with 
the Polyborus Brasiliensis: this is a®common bird, and has a 
wide geographical range; it is most numerous on the grassy 
savannahs of La Plata (where it goes by the name of Carrancha), 
and is far from unfrequent throughout the sterile plains of Pata- 
gonia. In the desert between the rivers Negro and Colorado, 
numbers constantly attend the line of road to devour the car- 
casses of the exhausted animals which chance to perish from 
fatigue and thirst. Although thus common in these dry and 
open countries, and likewise on the arid shores of the Pacific, it 
is nevertheless found inhabiting the damp impervious forests of 
West Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. The Carranchas, 
