A species so cosmopolitan in its tastes might have had a whole volume to itself in England; being only a poor foreigner, it has had no more than a few unfriendly paragraphs bestowed upon it. For it happens to be a member of that South-American subfamily of which even grave naturalists have spoken slightingly, calling them vile, cowardly, contemptible birds; and the Chimango is nearly least of them all--a sort of poor relation and hanger on of a family already looked upon as bankrupt and disreputable. Despite this evil reputation, few species are more deserving of careful study; for throughout an extensive portion of South America it is the commonest bird we know; and when we consider how closely connected are the lives of all living creatures by means of their interlacing relations, so that the predominance of any one kind, however innocuous, necessarily causes the modification, or extinction even, of surrounding species, we are better able to appreciate the importance of this despised fowl in the natural polity. Add to this its protean habits, and then, however poor a creature our bird may seem, and deserving of strange-sounding epithets from an ethical point of view, I do not know where the naturalist will find a more interesting one. The Chimango has not an engaging appearance. In size and figure it much resembles the Hen-harrier, and the plumage is uniformly of a light sandy brown colour; the shanks are slender, claws weak, and beak so slightly hooked that it seems like the merest apology of the Falcon's tearing weapon. It has an easy loitering flight, and when on the wing does not appear to have an object in view, like the Hawk, but wanders and prowls about here and there, and when it spies another bird it flies after him to see if he has food in his eye. When one finds something to eat the others try to deprive him of it, pursuing him with great determination all over the place; if the foremost pursuer flags, a fresh bird takes its place, until the object of so much contention--perhaps after all only a bit of skin or bone--is dropped to the ground, to be instantly snatched up by some bird in the tail of the chase; and he in turn becomes the pursued of all the others. This continues till one grows tired and leaves off watching them without seeing the result. They are loquacious and sociable, frequently congregating in loose companies of thirty or forty individuals, when they spend several hours every day in spirited exercises, soaring about like Martins, performing endless evolutions, and joining in aerial mock battles. When tired of these pastimes they all settle down again, to remain for an hour or so perched on the topmost boughs of trees or other elevations; and at intervals one bird utters a very long leisurely chant, with a falling inflection, followed by a series of short notes, all the other birds joining in chorus and uttering short notes in time with those of their soloist or precentor.