and one neighbour informed me that he was obliged every day to make a circuit of half a mile round the thistles, as the horses he rode became quite unmanageable in the path, they had been so terrified with the attacks of this Chimango. Where the intelligence of the bird appears to be really at fault is in its habit of attacking a sore-backed horse, tempted thereto by the sight of a raw spot, and apparently not understanding that the flesh it wishes to devour is an inseparable part of the whole animal. Darwin has noticed this curious blunder of the bird; and I have often seen a chafed saddle-horse wildly scouring the plain closely pursued by a hungry Chimango determined to dine on a portion of him. In the hot season, when marshes and lagoons are drying up, the Chimango is seen associating with Ibises and other waders, standing knee-deep in the water and watching for tadpoles, frogs, and other aquatic prey. He also wades after a very different kind of food. At the bottom of pools, collected on clayey soil after a summer shower, an edible fungus grows of a dull greenish colour and resembling gelatine. He has found out that this fungus is good for food, though I never saw any other creature eating it. In cultivated districts he follows the plough in company with the black-headed gulls, Molothri, Guira cuckoos, and tyrant-birds, and clumsily gleans amongst the fresh-turned mould for worms and larvæ. He also attends the pigs when they are rooting on the plain to share any succulent treasure-trove turned up by their snouts; for he is not a bird that allows dignity to stand between him and his dinner. In the autumn, on damp, sultry days, the red ants, that make small conical mounds on the pampas, are everywhere seen swarming. Rising high in the air they form a little cloud or column, and hang suspended for hours over the same spot. On such days the Milvagos fare sumptuously on little insects, and under each cloud of winged ants several of them are to be seen in company with a few Flycatchers, or other diminutive species, briskly running about to pick up the falling manna, their enjoyment undisturbed by any sense of incongruity.