At Mendoza we met an Italian who claimed to be the champion condor-hunter of all South America. During his ten years of collecting he had killed more than sixteen thousand of the magnificent birds. His record for one day was one hundred and fourteen. Naturally, they had become greatly reduced in numbers, for the condor lays but a single egg and it takes many months to rear the young. His method was to drive a burro to some lonely gorge among the bleak mountain-tops favored by the birds, and then to kill the animal. He was very particular in stating that the burro had to be fat—a poor one would not do for bait. He then spread nets about the carcass, and when the condors gathered about to feast he pulled a rope and ensnared them; on one occasion he trapped sixty-seven at one throw of the net. The prisoners were despatched with a club and the long wing-feathers extracted to be exported to France to decorate women’s hats. Formerly he had received about twenty pesos per bird. With his accumulated wealth he built a powder-mill; this promptly blew up, so he was again practically penniless. Of course there were still condors in the mountains—in fact, he knew of a ledge where upward of eight hundred congregated to spend the nights, but the price of feathers had gone down fifty per cent on account of the war. He ended his speech in a very dramatic manner: “What,” he said, “me go out and slaughter such a wonderful, magnificent, and rare bird as the condor for ten pesos each? No, señor! Not me.”

About the only animal that was abundant near Mendoza was the jack-rabbit, introduced into the Argentine some forty years ago. It has increased to such an extent as to be harmful, and has spread over the entire southern part of the plains country. Many are killed and sold in the markets under the name liebre.

We met Doctor Chapman at Mendoza. He had come from Chile over the Trans-Andean Railroad. A wire had been sent us to join him at Santiago, but it arrived three weeks too late to be of any service. After a few days spent in taking photographs of the country and collecting accessories for a habitat group of the rhea, we started eastward to Buenos Aires.

We left Mendoza at one o’clock P. M., September 3. At first there was a seemingly endless succession of vineyards; then a vast expanse of arid country more barren even than the desert of Santiago del Estero. At midnight we left the parched plains and entered the fertile wheat and grazing lands which constitute one of Argentina’s chief sources of wealth and justly entitle that country to rank among the producing and great nations of the New World. Commodious ranch-houses standing in fields where thousands of head of live stock grazed were passed in steady succession. In some of the pastures hundreds of half-tamed rheas fed unconcernedly among the horses and cattle. Frequently we saw flocks of snowy gulls following a plough or resting in a bunch on the ground; lapwings circled about with angry screams, and ducks swam unconcernedly in the little sloughs beside the railroad. There were also rows of solemn, sedate storks, gravely contemplating the train as it passed, and flamingoes dabbling for mollusks in shallow pools.

After a continuous ride of twenty-five hours we reached Buenos Aires, and two weeks later the Amazon of the Royal Mail Line was speeding us homeward.

I am writing these last few pages in an aviation concentration-camp awaiting orders to go to new lands, and new and possibly far more exciting experiences; but almost daily my thoughts go back to the great wonderland that lies south of us, and which I have learned to love. Speed the day when I may again eagerly scan the horizon for a first, faint tinge of its palm-fringed shore-line!

INDEX