me, but merely moved, a few steps out of my path About nine o'clock we
were eating supper in the rancho when suddenly the entire multitude of
birds covering the marsh for miles around burst forth into a tremendous
evening song. It is impossible to describe the effect of this mighty
rush of sound; but let the reader try to imagine half-a-million voices,
each far more powerful than that one which makes itself heard all over
Regent's Park, bursting forth on the silent atmosphere of that dark
lonely plain. One peculiarity was that in this mighty noise, which
sounded louder than the sea thundering on a rocky coast, I seemed to be
able to distinguish hundreds, even thousands, of individual voices.
Forgetting my supper, I sat motionless and overcome with astonishment,
while the air, and even the frail rancho, seemed to be trembling in that
tempest of sound. When it ceased my host remarked with a smile, "We are
accustomed to this, senor--every evening we have this concert." It was a
concert well worth riding a hundred miles to hear. But the chakar
country is just now in a transitional state, and the precise conditions
which made it possible for birds so large in size to form such immense
congregations are rapidly passing away. In desert places, the bird
subsists chiefly on leaves and seeds of aquatic plants; but when the
vast level area of the pampas was settled by man, the ancient stiff
grass-vegetation gave place to the soft clovers and grasses of Europe,
and to this new food the birds took very kindly. Other circumstances
also favoured their increase. They were never persecuted, for the
natives do not eat them, though they are really very good--the flesh
being something like wild goose in flavour. A _higher_ civilization is
changing all this: the country is becoming rapidly overrun with
emigrants, especially by Italians, the pitiless enemies of all
bird-life.

The chakars, like the skylark, love to soar upwards when singing, and at