VI 
A VIOLENT HAILSTORM 
12 I 
so does the teru-tero. While riding over the grassy plains, one 
is constantly pursued by these birds, which appear to hate man¬ 
kind, and I am sure deserve to be hated for their never-ceasing, 
unvaried, harsh screams. To the sportsman they are most 
annoying, by telling every other bird and animal of his approach : 
to the traveller in the country they may possibly, as Molina 
says, do good, by warning him of the midnight robber. During 
the breeding season, they attempt, like our peewits, by feigning 
to be wounded, to draw away from their nests dogs and 
other enemies. The eggs of this bird are esteemed a great 
delicacy. 
September 16th .—To the seventh posta at the foot of the 
Sierra Tapalguen. The country was quite level, with a coarse 
herbage and a soft peaty soil. The hovel was here remark¬ 
ably neat, the posts and rafters being made of about a dozen dry 
thistle-stalks bound together with thongs of hide ; and by the 
support of these Ionic-like columns, the roof and sides were 
thatched with reeds. We were here told a fact, which I would 
not have credited, if I had not had partly ocular proof of it ; 
namely, that, during the previous night, hail as large as small 
apples, and extremely hard, had fallen with such violence as to 
kill the greater number of the wild animals. One of the men 
had already found thirteen deer (Cervus campestris) lying dead, 
and I saw their fresh hides ; another of the party, a few minutes 
after my arrival, brought in seven more. Now I well know, 
that one man without dogs could hardly have killed seven deer 
in a week. The men believed they had seen about fifteen dead 
ostriches (part of one of which we had for dinner) ; and they 
said that several were running about evidently blind in one eye. 
Numbers of smaller birds, as ducks, hawks, and partridges, were 
killed. I saw one of the latter with a black mark on its back, 
as if it had been struck with a paving-stone. A fence of thistle- 
stalks round the hovel was nearly broken down, and my in¬ 
former, putting his head out to see what was the matter, received 
a severe cut, and now wore a bandage. The storm was said to 
have been of limited extent: we certainly saw from our last 
night’s bivouac a dense cloud and lightning in this direction. It 
is marvellous how such strong animals as deer could thus have 
been killed ; but I have no doubt, from the evidence I have 
