On another occasion I was still more
impressed, for here the largest number of birds I have ever found
congregated at one place all sung together. This was on the southern
pampas, at a place called Gualicho, where I had ridden for an hour
before sunset over a marshy plain where there was still much standing
water in the rushy pools, though it was at the height of the dry season.
This whole plain was covered with an endless flock of chakars, not in
close order, but scattered about in pairs and small groups. In this
desolate spot I found a small rancho inhabited by a gaucho and his
family, and I spent the night with them. The birds were all about the
house, apparently as tame as the domestic fowls, and when I went out to
look for a spot for my horse to feed on, they would not fly away from
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.
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