Boa sunning itself at the entrance to a vizcacha burrow.
At last the long-awaited time arrived when the full moon lighted up the landscape, so we made preparations to go in pursuit of the wily vizcacha. The judge sent word for us to be ready early one afternoon as he was going to accompany us, and we could spend a few hours beforehand to advantage looking for other things. Two o’clock found us clamoring at his door, and a few minutes later we had started on our excursion.
The judge carried a double-barrelled shotgun of European make; his ten-year-old son, whom he always called the secretario, had a “nigger-killer,” a large bag full of pebbles and a machete; he was a fine little fellow, always friendly, always polite, and nothing suited him better than to tramp at his father’s heels on the long excursions into the country. I had my Parker which had served me so splendidly in many places.
For an hour or two we tramped broad reaches of cactus desert; but it was silent as the very sphinx, and we saw nothing. However, as the sun began to drop slowly out of sight, things began to stir. At first we heard a shrill turkey-like gobble some distance away, and holding up his hand to command silence, the judge whispered: “Chuña; they are right over there. You and the secretario go down this little path, and I’ll go on this side; quien sabe? we might head them off.” His fine Spanish face beamed with excitement as he turned away.
We sneaked along for a distance of a hundred yards, and presently I saw a pair of gray forms moving swiftly away underneath the thorny growth. They looked like fleeting shadows, and there was time for a hurried shot only. The secretario rushed forward and triumphantly brought back a large, crested, crane-like bird of a uniform gray color, the common name of which is seriema. In some ways the bird resembles a hawk. It lives on the ground and eats grasshoppers, cavies, mice, and almost anything it can catch and swallow; at night it roosts in the trees. Its flesh is excellent. Perhaps no bird is more wary or harder to hunt in this entire region, so we were highly elated with our first shot.
Many birds began to appear now; there were the long-billed brown wood-hewers we had seen at Suncho Corral; Argentine “road-runners” which perked their tails and sped away into the thickets; large brownish leñadores, singing on the edges of their huge nests; there were also woodpeckers, hawks, cardinals, and doves.
The judge suggested that we visit one of the reservoirs as we might find ducks there, and calmly floating on the very first one we came to was a small flock of shovellers; they saw us just too late, and one was added to the bag as they rose from the water.
We now cut across a little field from which the corn had been gathered, and here we were kept busy for some time picking off the swift-winged tinamou as they rushed away at our approach. I know of no bird which furnishes better shooting or better eating, and the pity of it is that it does not exist in our own country. After we had shot a number, the judge suggested that we might try for a fox as they would soon be prowling about, so he tied a string to the foot of one of the freshly killed birds and the secretario dragged it on the ground after him as he walked along. Some time later we sat down to rest, and much to my surprise a fox appeared on the trail of the bird; as he stopped short, at sight of us, the judge bagged him, and he proved to be the largest and the finest of the dozen or more we succeeded in getting during our entire stay. These foxes, which are of a rich gray color, silver-tipped, spend a great part of their time in dens in the vizcacha burrows, but seem to feed principally on tinamou and other birds.
Cavies without number ran about under the low bushes, and uttered queer little squeaks as they became frightened and dashed into the holes which honeycombed the ground; but of the giant cavy we had not a glimpse until we entered a dry, little gully; there we were just in time to see a fleeing, rabbit-like form, which was added to our assortment.
