The Crested Screamer. 
231 
at the time, while vivid flashes of* lightning lit the 
black cloud overhead at short intervals. I watched 
their flight and listened to their notes, till suddenly 
as they made a wide sweep upwards they dis- 
appeared in the cloud, and at the same moment 
their voices became muffled, and seemed to come 
from an immense distance. The cloud continued 
emitting sharp flashes of lightning, but the birds 
never reappeared, and after six or seven minutes 
once more their notes sounded loud and clear above 
the muttering thunder. I suppose they had passed 
through the cloud into the clear atmosphere above 
it, but I was extremely surprised at their fearless- 
ness ; for as a rule when soaring birds see a storm 
coming they get out of its way, flying before it or 
stoopiug to the earth to seek shelter of some kind, 
for most living things appear to have a wholesome 
dread of thunder and lightning„ 
When taken young the chakar becomes very 
tame and attached to man, showing no incliuation 
to go back to a wild life. There was one kept at an 
estancia called Mangrullos, on the western frontier 
of Buenos Ayres, and the people of the house gave 
me a very curious account of it. The bird was a 
male, and had been reared by a soldier’s wife at a 
frontier outpost called La Esperanza, about twenty- 
five miles from Mangrullos. Four years before I 
saw the bird the Indians had invaded the frontier, 
destroying the Esperanza settlement and all the 
estancias for some leagues around. For some 
weeks after the invasion the chakar wandered about 
the country, visiting all the ruined estancias, appa- 
rently in quest of human beings, and on arriving 
