Sydney Porter—Notes from South America



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and I was very tempted to buy them, but I felt that I had enough parrots

at home. In one of the aviaries of this grotesque Parrot house were a

great many Nanday Conures looking much larger and brighter than

any I have ever seen in England. There were also specimens of the large

and dull-coloured Patagonian Conure, a bird which many years ago

was common around Buenos Aires. It has long since disappeared and

is now only found in the remote parts of the Argentine and Patagonia.

I met one very old settler who knew a good deal about the Argentine,

and he told me that though the bird was common in the old days he

had not seen any for many years. This Parrot had more or less adapted

itself to life on the treeless pampas, living and feeding on the ground,

also nesting in holes in the cliffs or high banks, and it was known as the

Bank or Burrowing Parrot. It must be many years now since these

birds were imported into this country but I remember seeing a specimen

a few years ago at the London Zoo.


I looked in vain for examples of another Argentine Parrakeet, the

Slight-billed Parrakeet ( Bolborhynchus aymara), a small, delicately

coloured parrakeet not much larger than a Budgerigar which I under¬

stand is not uncommon in the southerly parts of the Argentine.


There were several other rare Parrakeets and Conures but I lost

my notes regarding these.


As I have run on a greater length than I intended regarding the

birds in the Buenos Aires Zoo, I must not enumerate any more, sufficient

to say that there were a great many other birds, such as Darwin’s

Rheas, a rare relative of the Common Rhea which inhabits the chilly

regions of Patagonia, Jabirus, also many Ibis, Herons, Guans (including

a very rare black and white one, Pi'pile jacutinga ,) Curassows, Penelopes,

many birds of prey, native Doves and Pigeons and Waders too numerous

to mention.


I hoped whilst in the Argentine to make a stay in some out of the way

district in the far north of that country, and made a short study of the

bird life there, particularly that of the Waders and Herons, but the

attractions of Buenos Aires proved too great, hence the scrappiness of

these notes. There are few more attractive places in the world than

Buenos Aires, and none I regretted leaving so much as that beautiful

city. However I made excursions to the Delta of the Parana River and



