Athene cunicularia, Darwin, Zool. Beagle, iii. p. 31. Noctua cunicularia, Burm. La-Plata Reise, ii. p. 440; Durnford, Ibis, 1877, p. 38, et 1878, p. 397 (Patagonia). Pholeoptynx cunicularia, Scl. et Salv. Nomencl. p. 117; Hudson, P. Z. S. 1874, p. 308 (Buenos Ayres); Durnford, Ibis, 1877, p. 186 (Buenos Ayres); Gibson, Ibis, 1879, p. 423 (Buenos Ayres); White, P. Z. S. 1882, p. 622 (Catamarca, Misiones). Speotyto cunicularia, Sharpe, Cat. B. ii. p. 142; Barrows, Auk, 1884, p. 30 (Entrerios); Withington, Ibis, 1888, p. 469 (Lomas de Zamora).
Description.—Above dark sandy brown, with large oval spots of white and smaller spots and freckles of pale brown; wings and tail dark brown, with broad whitish cross bars; facial disk greyish brown, surrounded by white: beneath white, sides of breast marked with broad bars of brown, which become fainter on the belly; lower belly, thighs, and crissum pure white; tarsi feathered; toes slightly bristled: whole length 10·0 inches, wing 7·5, tail 3·5. Female similar, but rather larger.
Hab. North and South America.
The Burrowing-Owl is abundant everywhere on the pampas of Buenos Ayres and avoids woods, but not districts abounding in scattered trees and bushes. It sees much better than most Owls by day, and never affects concealment nor appears confused by diurnal sounds and the glare of noon. It stares fixedly—“with insolence,” Azara says—at a passer-by, following him with the eyes, the round head turning about as on a pivot. If closely approached it drops its body or bobs in a curious fashion, emitting a brief scream, followed by three abrupt ejaculations; and if made to fly goes only fifteen or twenty yards away, and alights again with face towards the intruder; and no sooner does it alight than it repeats the odd gesture and scream, standing stiff and erect, and appearing beyond measure astonished at the intrusion. By day it flies near the surface with wings continuously flapping, and invariably before alighting glides upwards for some distance and comes down very abruptly. It frequently runs rapidly on the ground, and is incapable of sustaining flight long. Gaucho boys pursue these birds for sport on horseback, taking them after a chase of fifteen or twenty minutes. They live in pairs all the year, and sit by day at the mouth of their burrow or on the Vizcacha’s mound, the two birds so close together as to be almost touching; when alarmed they both fly away, but sometimes the male only, the female diving into the burrow. On the pampas it may be more from necessity than choice that they always sit on the ground, as they are usually seen perched on the summits of bushes where such abound, as in Patagonia.
These are the commonest traits of the Burrowing-Owl in the settled districts, where it is excessively numerous and has become familiar with man; but in the regions hunted over by the Indians it is a scarce bird and has different habits. Shy of approach as a persecuted game fowl, it rises to a considerable height in the air when the approaching traveller is yet far off, and flies often beyond sight before descending again to the earth. This wildness of disposition is, without doubt, due to the active animosity of the pampas-tribes, who have all the ancient wide-spread superstitions regarding the Owl. Sister of the Evil Spirit is one of their names for it; they hunt it to death whenever they can, and when travelling will not stop to rest or encamp on a spot where an Owl has been spied. Where the country is settled by Europeans the bird has dropped its wary habits and become extremely tame. They are tenacious of the spot they live in, and are not easily driven out by cultivation. When the fields are ploughed up they make their kennels on their borders, or at the roadsides, and sit all day perched on the posts of the fences.
Occasionally they are seen preying by day, especially when anything passes near them, offering the chance of an easy capture. I have often amused myself by throwing bits of hard clay near one as it sat beside its kennel; for the bird will immediately give chase, only discovering its mistake when the object is firmly clutched in its talons. When there are young to be fed, they are almost as active by day as by night. On hot November days multitudes of a large species of Scarabæus appear, and the bulky bodies and noisy bungling flights of these beetles invite the Owls to pursuit, and on every side they are seen pursuing, and striking down the beetles, and tumbling upon them in the grass. Owls have a peculiar manner of taking their prey: they grapple it so tightly in their talons that they totter and strive to steady themselves by throwing out their wings, and, sometimes losing their balance, fall prostrate and flutter on the ground. If the animal captured be small they proceed after a while to dispatch it with the beak; if large they usually rise laboriously from the ground and fly to some distance with it, thus giving time for the wounds inflicted by the claws to do their work.
At sunset the Owls begin to hoot; a short followed by a long note is repeated many times with an interval of a second of silence. There is nothing dreary or solemn in this performance; the voice is rather soft and sorrowful, somewhat resembling the lowest notes of the flute in sound. In spring they hoot a great deal, many individuals responding to each other.
In the evening they are often seen hovering at a height of forty feet above the surface, and continuing to do so fully a minute or longer without altering their position. They do not drop the whole distance at once on their prey, but descend vertically, tumbling and fluttering as if wounded, to within ten yards of the earth, and then, after hovering a few seconds more, glide obliquely on to it. They prey on every living creature not too large to be overcome by them. Sometimes when a mouse is caught they tear off the head, tail, and feet, devouring only the body. The hind quarters of toads and frogs are almost invariably rejected; and inasmuch as these are the most fleshy and succulent parts, this is a strange and unaccountable habit. They make an easy conquest of a snake eighteen inches long, and kill it by dealing it blows with the beak, hopping briskly about it all the time, apparently to guard themselves with their wings. They prey largely on the common Coronella anomala, but I have never seen one attacking a venomous species. When they have young many individuals become destructive to poultry, coming about the houses and carrying off the chickens and ducklings by day. In seasons of plenty they destroy far more prey than they can devour; but in severe winters they come, apparently starving, about the houses, and will then stoop to carry off any dead animal food, though old and dried up as a piece of parchment. This I have often seen them do.
Though the Owls are always on familiar terms with the Vizcachas (Lagostomus trichodactylus) and occasionally breed in one of their disused burrows, as a rule they excavate a breeding-place for themselves. The kennel they make is crooked, and varies in length from four to twelve feet. The nest is placed at the extremity, and is composed of wool or dry grass, often exclusively of dry horse-dung. The eggs are usually five in number, white, and nearly spherical; the number, however, varies, and I have frequently found six or seven eggs in a nest. After the female has begun laying the birds continue carrying in dry horse-dung, until the floor of the burrow and a space before it is thickly carpeted with this material. The following spring the loose earth and rubbish is cleared out, for the same hole may serve them two or three years. It is always untidy, but mostly so during the breeding-season, when prey is very abundant, the floor and ground about the entrance being often littered with excrements, green beetle-shells, pellets of hair and bones, feathers of birds, hind quarters of frogs in all stages of decay, great hairy spiders (Mygale), remains of half-eaten snakes, and other unpleasant creatures that they subsist on. But all this carrion about the little Owl’s disordered house reminds one forcibly of the important part the bird plays in the economy of nature. The young birds ascend to the entrance of the burrow to bask in the sun, and receive the food their parents bring; when approached they become irritated, snapping with their beaks, and retreat reluctantly into the hole; and for some weeks after leaving it they make it a refuge from danger. Old and young birds sometimes live together for four or five months. I believe that nine-tenths of the Owls on the pampas make their own burrows, but as they occasionally take possession of the forsaken holes of mammals to breed in, it is probable that they would always observe this last habit, if suitable holes abounded, as on the North-American prairies inhabited by the marmot. Probably our Burrowing-Owl originally acquired the habit of breeding in the ground in the open level regions it frequented; and when this habit (favourable as it must have been in such unsheltered situations) had become ineradicable, a want of suitable burrows would lead it to clean out such old ones as had become choked up with rubbish, to deepen such as were too shallow, and ultimately to excavate for itself. The mining instinct varies greatly in strength, even on the pampas. Some pairs, long mated, only begin to dig when the breeding-season is already on them; others make their burrows as early as April—that is six months before the breeding-season. Generally both birds work, one standing by and regarding operations with an aspect of grave interest, and taking its place in the pit when the other retires; but sometimes the female has no assistance from her partner, and the burrow then is very short. Some pairs work expeditiously and their kennel is deep and neatly made; others go about their task in a perfunctory manner, and begin, only to abandon, perhaps half a dozen burrows, and then rest two or three weeks from their unprofitable labours. But whether industrious or indolent, by September they all have their burrows made. I can only account for Azara’s unfortunate statement, repeated since by scores of compilers, that the Owl never constructs its own habitations, by assuming that a century ago, when he lived and the country was still very sparsely settled, this Owl had not yet become so abundant or laid aside the wary habit the aborigines had taught it, so that he did not become very familiar with its habits.
Glaucidium nanum, Scl. et Salv. Nomencl. p. 117; Burm. La-Plata Reise, ii. p. 441; Scl. P. Z. S. 1872, p. 549 (Rio Negro); White, P. Z. S. 1883, p. 41 (Cordova); Döring, Exp. al Rio Negro, p. 49 (Rio Negro); Sharpe, Cat. B. ii. p. 190.
Description.—Above dull reddish brown, mottled with concealed spots and bars of ochraceous buff; scapulars with an ashy tinge; head more rufous and longitudinally streaked; whitish collar on the hind neck; wings dark brown, banded with rufous; tail dark brown, with about ten rufous bars, and tipped with whitish; cheeks and chin pure white, the latter divided by a dark brown throat-band from the white fore neck; abdomen white, streaked with dark brown: whole length 8·0 inches, wing 3·8, tail 2·9. Female similar, but rather larger.
Hab. La Plata, Patagonia, and Chili.
This diminutive Owl, which barely reaches eight inches in length, and is light brown and grey in colour, was discovered by Captain King in 1827 in the neighbourhood of the Straits of Magellan. I met with it on the Rio Negro in Patagonia, but saw very little of it. It struck me that, like the Burrowing-Owl, it is not very strictly nocturnal, for I observed it in the daytime perched in exposed situations.
In 1882 White met with it in Cosquin, in Cordova, and made the following important note on its habits:—“It causes the naturalist much amusement to watch the habits of this pretty little Owl, that, perched perfectly motionless on a branch, utters such a sirenic cry as to attract little birds in great numbers. They are observed to cluster round it, all the while fluttering and in great excitement, charmed by some fascination. After waiting a while the Owl suddenly pounces upon the nearest for its victim.”
I also observed little birds mobbing it, when it perched in a conspicuous place in the daytime, as they always mob small birds of prey, but was not so fortunate as to hear the “sirenic cry” with which the Cordova bird fascinates its victims. One has heard this yarn of a “sirenic cry” before, of other species, for it is a very common myth. That an Owl should now be fitted with the old melodious cap seems strange; and Mr. White is in error when he says that this habit in our bird “causes the naturalist much amusement.”
The diurnal birds of prey of the family Falconidæ found in the Neotropical Region number about 110 species, of which 22 are at present known to occur within the limits of the present work. It is probable, however, that many additional species of this group will be hereafter added to the Argentine list.
As is usually the case with the Accipitres, most of the species have an extensive distribution.
Circus cinereus, Sharpe, Cat. B. i. p. 56; Scl. et Salv. P. Z. S. 1868, p. 143 (Buenos Ayres); iid. Nomencl. p. 118; Burm. La-Plata Reise, ii. p. 439 (Mendoza); Scl. P. Z. S. 1872, p. 536 (Rio Negro); Durnford, Ibis, 1877, p. 38 (Patagonia) et p. 187 (Buenos Ayres), et 1878, p. 397 (Patagonia); Gibson, Ibis, 1879, p. 411 (Buenos Ayres); Barrows, Auk, 1884, p. 30 (Bahia Blanca); Withington, Ibis, 1888, p. 469 (Lomas de Zamora).
Description.—Above bluish grey, with darker mottlings; wing-coverts with obsolete whitish edgings; primaries blackish; tail grey, with four black cross bands, and tipped with white: beneath, throat and neck like the back; abdomen thickly banded with white and rufous bars; under wing-coverts white; bill black; feet yellow; nails black: whole length 18·0 inches, wing 12·0, tail 8·2. Female: rather larger; above dark brown, with lighter brown spots and edgings; throat and fore neck like the back; wings beneath with black cross bands.
Hab. Southern portion of South America.
This Harrier is found throughout the Argentine Republic, and is also common in Patagonia and the Falkland Islands. On the pampas it is, I think, the most common bird of prey, after the excessively abundant Milvago chimango. Like the Chimango, it also prefers an open unwooded country, and resembles that bird not a little in its general appearance, and when in the brown stage of plumage may be easily mistaken for it. In the Falklands it has even acquired the Carrion Hawk’s habits, for Darwin distinctly saw one feeding on a carcass there, very much to his surprise. On the pampas I have always found it a diligent bird-hunter, and its usual mode of proceeding is to drive up the bird from the grass and to pursue and strike it down with its claws. Mr. Gibson’s account of its habits agrees with mine, and he says that “it will raise any small bird time after time, should the latter endeavour to conceal itself in the grass, preferring, as it would seem, to strike it on the wing.” He further says:—“Its flight is low and rather rapid, while if its quarry should double it loses no ground, for it turns something in the manner of a Tumbler Pigeon, going rapidly head over heels in the most eccentric and amusing fashion.”
Probably this Harrier has a partial migration, as a great many are always seen travelling across the pampas in the autumn and spring; many individuals, however, remain all winter.
The nest is made on the ground among long grass, or in reed-beds in marshy places, and the eggs are white blotched with dark red.
Circus macropterus, Scl. et Salv. Nomencl. p. 118; iid. P. Z. S. 1868, p. 143 (Buenos Ayres); Döring, Exp. al Rio Negro, p. 50 (Rio Colorado). Buteo macropterus, d’Orb. Voy., Ois. p. 112 (Buenos Ayres). Circus maculosus, Sharpe, Cat. B. i. p. 62. Circus megaspilus, Gould, Zool. Voy. Beagle, iii. p. 29 (Uruguay).
Description.—Above black; frontal band, superciliaries, and upper tail-coverts white; edge of facial ruff spotted with white; wing- and tail-feathers grey, with black cross bands: beneath white, chest and throat black, with some white streaks; under wing-coverts white, with narrow blackish cross bands: whole length 20·0 inches, wing 17·0, tail 10·0. Female similar, but larger.
Hab. South America.
This Harrier is also found in the Republic, but is not so common as the former species.
Asturina pucherani, Scl. et Salv. Ex. Orn. pl. 89, p. 177; iid. Nomencl. p. 118; iid. P. Z. S. 1869, p. 634 (Buenos Ayres); Durnford, Ibis, 1877, p. 187 (Buenos Ayres); Barrows, Auk, 1884, p. 30 (Entrerios); Withington, Ibis, 1888, p. 469 (Lomas de Zamora); Sharpe, Cat. B. i. p. 205.
Description.—Above dark brown; upper tail-coverts fulvous barred with brown; wings deep chestnut, barred and broadly tipped with black; tail fulvous, with four blackish cross bands: beneath, abdomen pale ochraceous, barred across with rufous; throat blackish, with slight white stripes; breast ochraceous, with narrow black shaft-stripes; thighs ochraceous, narrowly barred with orange-rufous; bill black; feet dark yellow: whole length 18·0 inches, wing 11·0, tail 8·2. Female similar, but rather larger.
Hab. South Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina.
This brown-plumaged, short-winged, and exceedingly vociferous Hawk is common in the woods along the shores of the Plata and its tributaries, and is never found far removed from water. It perches on the summit of a tree, and sits there motionless for hours at a time, and at intervals utters singularly long loud cries, which become more frequent and piercing when the bird is disturbed, as by the approach of a person. Its flight is rapid and irregular, the short blunt wings beating unceasingly, while the bird pours out a succession of loud vehement broken screams.
Mr. Barrows observed it on the Lower Uruguay, and writes:—“It feeds largely if not exclusively on fish, nearly every specimen having their remains (and nothing else) in their stomachs.” It would be very interesting to learn how it captures its prey.
Buteo swainsoni, Scl. et Salv. Nomencl. p. 118; Withington, Ibis, 1888, p. 469 (Lomas de Zamora); Baird, Brew., et Ridgw. N. A. B. iii. p. 263. Buteo obsoletus, Sharpe, Cat. B. i. p. 184. Buteo albicaudatus, Scl. et Salv. P. Z. S. 1869, p. 634 (Buenos Ayres).
Description.—Above blackish brown; scapulars slightly variegated with rufous; upper tail-coverts white, tinged with rufous; tail dark greyish brown, crossed by several ill-defined blackish bars: beneath white or pale ochraceous; a broad band covering the whole breast reddish brown; bill black; feet yellow; claws black: whole length 20·0 inches, wing 15·0, tail 8·5. Female similar, but larger.
Hab. North and South America.
The figure given herewith (Plate XVI.) represents a fine adult female specimen of this Buzzard, obtained by Mr. Frank Withington at Lomas de Zamora, on the 4th of February, 1886, and now in Sclater’s collection.
Swainson’s Buzzard is a North-American species, which has only recently been ascertained to occur in the southern part of the Western Hemisphere. Full details concerning it are given in the standard work on “North-American Land-birds,” to which we have referred above. Messrs. Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway divide the species into two subspecies, “swainsoni” and “oxypterus” to the latter of which they refer the southern specimens, but they acknowledge that it is “difficult to express points of absolute difference” between these subspecies.
It appears from what these authorities say (l. c. p. 268) that a young specimen procured by Hudson at Conchitas in 1860, and referred by Messrs. Salvin and Sclater with doubt to B. albicaudatus, really belongs to B. swainsoni. A second undoubtedly Argentine example is that procured by Mr. Withington and now figured.
Like other Buzzards, B. swainsoni varies much in plumage, and occasionally assumes a melanistic form, under which it was described and figured by Sclater in 1858 as Buteo fuliginosus (cf. P. Z. S. 1858, p. 356, and Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. iv. p. 267, pl. lxii.). Mr. Gurney is of opinion that d’Orbigny’s Buteo unicolor is also referable to this form of B. swainsoni (cf. Ibis, 1889, p. 134).
A well-known writer on North-American birds (Capt. C. E. Bendire) gives the following account of the nesting of Buteo swainsoni in Arizona:—
“This species is by far the commonest Hawk in the vicinity of Fort Huachuca, and a resident throughout the year. Lieutenant Benson found not less than forty-one of their nests containing eggs between May 14 and June 18, 1887. These were all placed in low mesquite trees and bushes, from 3 to 15 feet from the ground. Only six of these nests contained three eggs each, twenty-one nests contained two eggs, the remaining fourteen but a single egg. Many of the latter were undoubtedly laid by birds that had been robbed before, especially where the same nest was used again, which was frequently the case, and a few were uncompleted sets. Two eggs is the usual number laid by these birds, in Arizona at least. The nests were bulky platforms, composed of sticks of various sizes, with but a slight depression in the centre, and sparingly lined with a few bunches of dried grass. Lieutenant Benson writes me that after the Arkansas King-birds (Tyrannus verticalis, Say) began to build he invariably found one of their nests in any tree that contained a Swainson’s Hawk’s nest. In one case, a pair of these birds had placed their nest directly under, and but 8 or 9 inches from that of the Hawk. A pair of White-rumped Shrikes (Lanius ludovicianns excubitoroides) built also immediately below one of these Hawk’s nests.
“When not closely looked at, many of the eggs of Swainson’s Hawk appear to be unspotted, but on careful examination there are in reality but very few that are immaculate. Out of a series of sixty-nine specimens sent by Lieutenant Benson there are but three unspotted ones. The ground-colour of these eggs when fresh is a very distinct greenish white, which in course of time fades into a dull yellowish white, even if the eggs are not exposed to light. They are more or less heavily spotted and blotched, varying in colour from burnt-umber to tawny olive, and in some of the lighter coloured specimens from a French grey to a drab-grey. Their shape ranges from a short ovate to an oval, and they average about 2·23 by 1·71 inches in length and width.”
Buteo albicaudatus, Durnford, Ibis, 1877, p. 187 (Buenos Ayres); Döring, Exp. al Rio Negro, p. 51 (Rio Negro); Withington, Ibis, 1888, p. 469 (Lomas de Zamora). Tachytriorchis albicaudatus, Sharpe, Cat. B. i. p. 162. Buteo pterocles, Scl. et Salv. Nomencl. p. 119; Barrows, Auk, 1884, p. 109 (Gualeguaychú); White, P. Z. S. 1882, p. 622 (Buenos Ayres).
Description.—Above greyish black, scapulars and upper wing-coverts ferruginous; rump and tail white, the latter with a broad black subapical band, and with slight narrow transverse slaty bars: beneath, throat black, abdomen white, flanks more or less barred with brown; bill black; feet dirty yellow: whole length 21·0 inches, wing 18·0, tail 8·0. Female similar, but rather larger.
Hab. Southern and Central America.
This Buzzard does not breed on the pampas, where I have observed it, but appears there in the spring and autumn, irregularly, when migrating, and in flocks which travel in a loitering, desultory manner. The flocks usually number from thirty or forty to a hundred birds, but sometimes many more. I have seen flocks which must have numbered from one to two thousand birds. When flying the flock is very much scattered, and does not advance in a straight line, but the birds move in wide circles at a great height in the air, so that a person on horseback travelling at a canter can keep directly under them for two or three hours. On the ground one of these large flocks will sometimes occupy an area of half a square league, so widely apart do the birds keep. I have dissected a great many and found nothing but coleopterous insects in their stomachs; and indeed they would not be able to keep in such large companies when travelling if they required a nobler prey.
At the end of one summer a flock numbering about two hundred birds appeared at an estancia near my home, and though very much disturbed they remained for about three months, roosting at night on the plantation trees, and passing the day scattered about the adjacent plain, feeding on grasshoppers and beetles. This flock left when the weather turned cold; but at another estancia a flock appeared later in the season and remained all winter. The birds became so reduced in flesh that after every cold rain or severe frost numbers were found dead under the trees where they roosted; and in that way most of them perished before the return of spring.
Buteo erythronotus, Sharpe, Cat. B. i. p. 172; Scl. et Salv. Nomencl. p. 119; Scl. P. Z. S. 1872, p. 536 (Rio Negro); Durnford, Ibis, 1877, p. 38, et 1878, p. 397 (Patagonia); Salvin, Ibis, 1880, p. 362 (Salta); Barrows, Auk, 1884, p. 109 (Azul); Withington, Ibis, 1888, p. 469 (Lomas de Zamora). Buteo tricolor, Burm. La-Plata Reise, ii. p. 436 (Mendoza and Tucuman).
Description.—Above slaty blue; wing-feathers slaty, with narrow transverse bars of black; upper tail-coverts and tail white, the latter with a broad black subapical band and numerous narrow grey cross bars: beneath white, with slight grey cross bars on the belly; bill black; feet dirty yellow: whole length 25 inches, wing 18·5, tail 10·0. Female similar, but back deep chestnut.
Hab. Southern portion of South America.
This is a fine bird—the king of South-American Buzzards. In the adult female the three colours of the plumage are strongly contrasted; the back being rusty rufous, the rest of the upper parts grey, the whole under surface pure white. It is occasionally met with in the northern provinces of the Argentine Republic, but is most common in Patagonia; and it has been said that in that region it takes the place of the nearly allied Buteo albicaudatus of Brazil. In habits, however, the two species are as different as it is possible for two raptores to be; for while the northern bird has a cowardly spirit, is, to some extent, gregarious, and feeds largely on insects, the Patagonian species has the preying habits of the Eagle, and lives exclusively, I believe, or nearly so, on cavies and other small mammals. When Captain King first discovered it in 1827, he described it as “a small beautiful Eagle.” In Patagonia it is very abundant, and usually seen perched on the summit of a bush, its broad snowy-white bosom conspicuous to the eye at a great distance—one of the most familiar features in the monotonous landscape of that grey country. The English colonists on the Chupat, Durnford says, call it the “white horse,” owing to its conspicuous white colour often deceiving them when they are out searching for strayed horses in the hills. It is a wary bird, and when approached has the habit of rising up in widening circles to a vast height in the air. When sailing about in quest of prey it usually maintains a height of fifty or sixty yards above the surface. The stomachs of all the individuals I have examined contained nothing but the remains of cavies (Cavia australis).
The nest is built on the top of a thorn bush, and is a large structure of sticks, lined with grass, fur, dry dung, and other materials. “The eggs are greyish white in colour, blotched and marked, principally towards the large end, with two shades of umber-brown” (Gould).
Asturina unicincta, Burm. La-Plata Reise, ii. p. 436 (Mendoza). Urubitinga unicincta, Scl. et Salv. Nomencl. p. 119; Gibson, Ibis, 1879, p. 411 (Buenos Ayres); Salvin, Ibis, 1880, p. 362 (Salta); Withington, Ibis, 1888, p. 469 (Lomas de Zamora). Antenor unicinctus, Ridgw. N. A. B. iii. p. 249 (1874). Erythrocnema unicincta, Sharpe, Cat. B. i. p. 85.
Description.—Above black, upper wing-coverts chestnut; upper tail-coverts white; tail black, concealed base and tip white: beneath black; thighs deep ferruginous; crissum white: whole length 23·0 inches, wing 14·5, tail 9·5. Female similar, but larger.
Hab. North and South America.
This is the Common Buzzard of the Plata region. It differs from the species previously described in its greater length of wing, and in the habit of flying near the ground when in search of prey; resembling in this respect a Harrier, only its flight is slower and more loitering. It prefers an open country, but on the pampas, like all large Hawks, it meets with great persecution from the ever-vigilant, fierce-tempered Spur-winged Lapwing. I once saw one of these Buzzards, while being so persecuted, make a conquest which greatly surprised me. It was sailing over the plain, about twenty feet from the surface, harried by several Lapwings, when suddenly, just as one Lapwing swept downwards past it in the usual way, apparently missing the head of the Hawk with its sharp wing-spurs by a hair’s breadth, the Buzzard struck at and seized it in its claws and bore it to the ground. The screams of the captive and its fellows quickly brought to the spot a cloud of two or three hundred Lapwings, all hovering and screaming their loudest. I ran to the spot to aid in the rescue, when seeing me coming the Buzzard rose heavily from the ground, still carrying the Plover, and flew away beyond reach.
Urubitinga meridionalis, Scl. et Salv. Nomencl. p. 119; iid. P. Z. S. 1869, p. 634 (Buenos Ayres); Salvin, Ibis, 1880, p. 362 (Salta). Heterospizias meridionalis, Sharpe, Cat. B. i. p. 160; Barrows, Auk, 1884, p. 109 (Entrerios). Asturina rutilans, Burm. La-Plata Reise, ii. p. 436 (Tucuman).
Description.—Above slaty grey, passing into ferruginous rufous on the head, and blackish on the lower tail-coverts; wing-feathers chestnut, with narrow transverse black bars and long black ends; tail black, with a broad median white band and white tip: beneath clear ferruginous red, with narrow transverse black bars; bill black, yellow at the base; feet yellowish brown: whole length 20·0 inches, wing 16·5, tail 8·3. Female similar, but larger.
Hab. South America.
This Buzzard inhabits the northern portion of the Argentine Republic, and is also found in the woods and marshes along the Plata basin, ranging south to Buenos Ayres. The wings are larger and the flight slower than in the last species. The plumage is nearly of a uniform dark brown.
At Concepcion, in Entrerios, Mr. Barrows tells us it is not unfrequently seen in cold weather. In July 1880, during an almost unprecedented rise of the river, it was quite abundant. The stomach of a gorged female examined contained only young grasshoppers.
Haliaëtus melanoleucus, Burm. La-Plata Reise, ii. p. 435 (Paraná, Tucuman, Pampas). Geranoaëtus melanoleucus, Scl. et Salv. Nomencl. p. 119; Hudson, P. Z. S. 1872, p. 536 (Rio Negro); Durnford, Ibis, 1877, p. 38, et 1878, p. 397 (Patagonia); Gibson, Ibis, 1879, p. 409 (Buenos Ayres); Barrows, Auk, 1884, p. 110 (Entrerios and Ventana). Buteo melanoleucus, Sharpe, Cat. B. i. p. 168.
Description.—Above black, wings grey, with narrow transverse black bars; tail black: beneath, throat grey; breast black, with slight round whitish spots; abdomen white, faintly barred across with grey; bill plumbeous; feet yellow, claws black: whole length 26·0 inches, wing 19·0, tail 10·5. Female similar, but larger.
Hab. Whole southern half of South America, and western portion of northern half.
The Grey or Chilian Eagle, like most diurnal birds of prey, undergoes many changes of colour, the plumage at different periods having its brown, black, and grey stages: in the old birds it is a uniform clear grey, and the under surface white. Throughout the Argentine country this is the commonest Eagle, and I found it very abundant in Patagonia. D’Orbigny describes it with his usual prolixity—pardonably so in this case, however, the bird being one of the very few species with which he appears to have become familiar from personal observation. He says that it is a wary bird; pairs for life, the male and female never being found far apart; and that it soars in circles with a flight resembling that of a Vulture, and that the form of its broad blunt wings increases its resemblance to that bird. Cavies and small mammals are its usual prey; and in the autumn and winter, when the Pigeons congregate in large numbers, it follows their movements. During the Pigeon-season, he has counted as many as thirty Eagles in the course of a three leagues’ ride; and he has frequently seen an Eagle swoop down into a cloud of Pigeons, and invariably reappear with one struggling in its talons. It is seldom found far from the shores of the sea or of some large river; and on the Atlantic coast, in Patagonia, it soars above the sands at ebb-tide, looking out for stranded fish, carcases of seals, and other animal food left by the retiring waters, and quarrels with Condors and Vultures over the refuse, even when it is quite putrid. It acts as a weather prognostic, and before a storm is seen to rise in circles to a vast height in the air, uttering piercing screams, which may be heard after it has quite disappeared from sight.
The nest of this species is usually built on the ledge of an inaccessible rock or precipice, but not unfrequently on a tree. Mr. Gibson describes one, which he found on the top of a thorn-tree, as a structure of large sticks three feet in diameter, the hollow cushioned with dry grass. It contained two eggs, dull white, marked with pale reddish blotches.
Mr. Gibson compares its cry to a “wild human laugh,” and also writes:—“Its whereabouts may often be detected by an attendant flock of Caranchos (Polyborus tharus), particularly in the case of a young bird. As soon as it rises from the ground or from a tree, these begin to persecute it, ascending spirally also, and making dashes at it, while the Eagle only turns its head watchfully from side to side, the mere action being sufficient to avert the threatened collision.”
Gay, in his ‘Natural History of Chili,’ describes the affectionate and amusing habits of an Eagle of this species which he had tamed. It took great delight in playing with his hand, and would seize and pretend to bite one of his fingers, but really with as much tenderness as a playful dog displays when pretending to bite its master. It used also to amuse itself by picking up a pebble in its beak, and with a jerk of its head toss it up in the air, then seize it in its claws when it fell, after which it would repeat the performance.
Harpyhaliaëtus coronatus, Scl. et Salv. Nomencl. p. 119; Hudson, P. Z. S. 1872, p. 536 (Rio Negro); Sharpe, Cat. B. i. p. 221.
Description.—Above ashy brown, with a long occipital crest of darker feathers; wings grey with blackish tips; tail black, with a broad white median band and white tip: beneath paler ashy brown, thighs blackish: whole length 33 inches, wing 22·0, tail 13·5. Female similar, but larger.
Hab. South America.
I met with this fine Eagle on the Rio Negro, in Patagonia, where d’Orbigny also found it; the entire Argentine Territory comes, however, within its range. Having merely seen it perched on the tall willows fringing the Rio Negro, or soaring in wide circles far up in the sky, I cannot venture to speak of its habits, while the account of them which d’Orbigny built up is not worth quoting, for he does not say how he got his information. One of his statements would, if true, be very important indeed. He says that his attention was drawn to a very curious fact concerning the Crowned Harpy, which was, that this bird preys chiefly on the skunk—an animal, he very truly adds, with so pestilential an odour that even the most carnivorous of mammals are put to flight by it; that it is the only bird of prey that kills the skunk, and that it does so by precipitating itself from a vast height upon its quarry, which it then quickly despatches. It would not matter at all whether the Eagle dropped from a great or a moderate height, for in either case the skunk would receive its enemy with the usual pestilent discharge. D’Orbigny’s account is, however, pure conjecture, and though he does not tell us what led him to form such a conclusion, I have no doubt that it was because the Eagle or Eagles he obtained had the skunk-smell on their plumage. Most of the Eagles I shot in Patagonia, including about a dozen Chilian Eagles, smelt of skunk, the smell being in most cases old and faint. Of two Crowned Harpies obtained, only one smelt of skunk. This only shows that in Patagonia Eagles attack the skunk, which is not strange, considering that it is of a suitable size and conspicuously marked; that it goes about fearlessly in the daytime and is the most abundant animal, the small cavy excepted, in that sterile country. But whether the Eagles succeed in their attacks on it is a very different matter. The probability is that when an Eagle, incited by the pangs of hunger, commits so great a mistake as to attack a skunk, the pestilent fluid, which has the same terribly burning and nauseating effects on the lower animals as on man, very quickly makes it abandon the contest. It is certain that pumas make the same mistake as the Eagles do, for in some that are caught the fur smells strongly of skunk. It might be said that the fact that many Eagles smell of skunk serves to show that they do feed on them, for otherwise they would learn by experience to avoid so dangerous an animal, and the smell of a first encounter would soon wear off. I do not think that hungry birds of prey, in a barren country like Patagonia, would learn from one repulse, or even from several, the fruitlessness and danger of such attacks; while the smell is so marvellously persistent that one or two such attacks a year on the part of each Eagle would be enough to account for the smell on so many birds. If skunks could be easily conquered by Eagles, they would not be so numerous or so neglectful of their safety as we find them.
A fine example of this bird was brought alive from the Argentine Republic to England by Mr. E. W. Goodlake in 1863, and lived for several years in the Zoological Society’s Gardens.
Geranospiza cærulescens, Scl. et Salv. Nomencl. p. 121; White, P. Z. S. 1882, p. 623 (Salta). Geranospizias cærulescens, Sharpe, Cat. B. i. p. 81.
Description.—Above plumbeous, nape and upper tail-coverts slightly mottled with white; wing-feathers black, with a large white spot on the inner webs of the primaries; tail black, with two broad ochraceous white bars and white tip: beneath plumbeous, abdomen and under wing-coverts with irregular white cross bands; bill plumbeous; feet yellow: whole length 16·5 inches, wing 9·5, tail 8·0. Female similar, but not so distinctly coloured, and larger.
Hab. South America.
White obtained an example of this species at Campo Colorado, near Oran, and another on the Upper Uruguay.
Falco peregrinus, Scl. et Salv. Nomencl. p. 121; Withington, Ibis, 1888, p. 470. Falco communis, Sharpe, Cat. B. i. p. 376.
Description.—Above plumbeous, lighter on the rump, more or less distinctly barred with blackish; head and cheeks blackish: beneath white, tinged with cinnamomeous, abdomen and thighs sparingly traversed by narrow black cross bands; under surface of wings white, regularly banded with ashy black; bill plumbeous; cere yellow; feet yellow, nails black: whole length 20 inches, wing 14·0, tail 6·7. Female similar, but larger.
Hab. Old and New Worlds.
The Peregrine Falcon is found throughout the Argentine Republic, but is nowhere numerous, and is not migratory; nor is it “essentially a duck-hawk,” as in India according to Dr. Anderson, for, it preys chiefly on land birds. It is solitary, and each bird possesses a favourite resting-place or home, where it spends several hours every day, and also roosts at night. Where there are trees it has its chosen site where it may always be found at noon; but on the open treeless pampas a mound of earth or the bleached skull of a horse or cow serves it for a perch, and here for months the bird may be found every day on its stand. It sits upright and motionless, springs suddenly into the air when taking flight, and flies in a straight line, and with a velocity which few birds can equal. Its appearance always causes great consternation amongst other birds, for even the Spur-winged Lapwing, the spirited persecutor of all other Hawks, flies screaming with terror from it. It prefers attacking moderately large birds, striking them on the wing, after which it stoops to pick them up. While out riding one day, I saw a Peregrine sweep down from a great height and strike a Burrowing-Owl to the earth, the Owl having risen up before me. It then picked it up and flew away with it in its talons.
The Peregrine possesses one very curious habit. When a plover, pigeon, or duck is killed, it eats the skin and flesh of the head and neck, picking the vertebræ clean of the flesh down to the breast-bone, and also eating the eyes, but leaving the body untouched. I have found scores of dead birds with head and neck picked clean in this way; and once I watched for some months a Peregrine which had established itself near my home, where it made havoc among the Pigeons; and I frequently marked the spot to which it carried its prey, and on going to the place always found that the Pigeon’s head and neck only had been stripped of flesh. The Burrowing-Owl has an analogous habit, for it invariably rejects the hind quarters of the toads and frogs which it captures.
At the approach of the warm season the Peregrines are often seen in twos and threes violently pursuing each other at a great height in the air, and uttering shrill piercing screams, which can be heard distinctly after the birds have disappeared from sight.