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
such times when they have risen till their dark bulky bodies appear like
floating specks on the blue sky, or until they disappear from sight
altogether, the notes become wonderfully etherealized by distance to a
soft silvery sound, and it is then very delightful to listen to them.
Pages:
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231