As Mr. Cherrie and I were eager to devote every available moment to zoological work, we left Fiala and Sigg, whose duty it was to look after the rather appalling amount of luggage, and secured passage on the Argentine Northwestern Railroad, which had just inaugurated through service to Asuncion, Paraguay. We took only the small amount of equipment necessary for few weeks’ work, as the two others were to come up with the remainder of the baggage on the first available freight-boat. Our train was the second to make the through trip and was scheduled to run biweekly. It was composed of seven Pullmans, two baggage, and a dining car; the service was good. Leaving Buenos Aires on the afternoon of Sunday, November 2, we reached Rosario at dark. Here the train was run onto a steel boat and carried up-river a distance of sixty miles, after which it continued the journey on the east bank of the Paraná. The next night we recrossed the river on a ferry, and were landed at Encarnacion, Paraguay. Asuncion was reached late on the afternoon of Tuesday. The railway journey had been through level plains, interspersed at long intervals with small clumps and strips of low woods; but it is essentially a grazing country and we passed numerous herds of cattle feeding on the vast, fence-enclosed ranges. Stalking about unconcernedly among the herds were small bands of semi-domesticated rheas, but they were not abundant; I doubt if we saw a hundred during the entire trip. Caracaras, or carrion-hawks, glossy ibises, our old friends the jacanas, which resembled huge grasshoppers when on the wing, rails, and spur-wing plovers, or lapwings, were plentiful. Frequently we saw the domed mud-nests of oven-birds perched upon fence or telegraph-poles, or on the lower branches of trees. Villages are few and far between, and the natives, a motley crowd of dark-skinned individuals, usually left their shambling, grass-thatched huts and came down _en masse_ to see the train. Asuncion is a quaint old town, plainly showing the marks of violence that have been left by frequent revolutions. Mr. Ferris, the American consul, who met us at the station and rendered us every assistance possible, had witnessed five revolutions in as many years; there had been seven presidents in the same period of time. The streets of the city are narrow and paved with cobblestones; the buildings are low, constructed of adobe, and have red-tile roofs. There are one or two banks, a college, several churches, a public market and good hotels, as well as fair electric car and light service; there is also the inevitable lottery. We noticed little business activity. An air of depression seemed to hang like a pall over the people, and this may be readily accounted for when one recalls the tragic history of their country. Many of the women were in deep mourning. One authority estimated that the proportion of women to men was eleven to one, although this is probably an exaggeration.