The Crested Screamer. 231
at the time, while vivid flashes of lightning lit the black cloud overhead at short intervals. I watched their flight and listened to their notes, till suddenly as they made a wide sweep upwards they disappeared in the cloud, and at the same moment their voices became muffled, and seemed to come from an immense distance. The cloud continued emitting sharp flashes of lightning, but the birds never reappeared, and after six or seven minutes once more their notes sounded loud and clear above the muttering thunder. I suppose they had passed through the cloud into the clear atmosphere above it, but I was extremely surprised at their fearlessness; for as a rule when soaring birds see a storm coming they get out of its way, flying before it or stooping to the earth to seek shelter of some kind, for most living things appear to have a wholesome dread of thunder and lightning.
When taken young the chakar becomes very tame and attached to man, showing no inclination to go back to a wild life. There was one kept at an estancia called Mangrullos, on the western frontier of Buenos Ayres, and the people of the house gave me a very curious account of it. The bird was a male, and had been reared by a soldier's wife at a frontier outpost called La Esperanza, about twenty-five miles from Mangrullos. Four years before I saw the bird the Indians had invaded the frontier, destroying the Esperanza settlement and all the estancias for some leagues around. For some weeks after the invasion the chakar wandered about the country, visiting all the ruined estancias, apparently in quest of human beings, and on arriving
232 The Naturalist in La Plata.
at Mangrullos, which had not been burnt and was still inhabited, it settled down at ones and never afterwards showed any disposition to go away. It was extremely tame, associating by day with the poultry, and going to roost with them at night OH a high perch, probably for the sake of companionship, for in a wild state the bird roosts on the ground. It was friendly towards all the members of the household except one, a peon, and against this person from the first the bird always displayed the greatest antipathy, threatening him with its wings, puffing itself out, and hissing like an angry goose. The man had a swarthy, beardless face, and it was conjectured that the chakar associated him in its mind with the savages who had destroyed its early home.
Close to the house there was a lagoon, never dry, which was frequently visited by flocks of wild chakars. Whenever a flock appeared the tame bird would go out to join them; and though the chakars are mild-tempered birds and very rarely quarrel, albeit so well provided with formidable weapons, they invariably attacked the visitor with great fury, chasing him back to the house, and not ceasing their persecutions till the poultry-yard was reached. They appeared to regard this tame bird that dwelt with man as a kind of renegade, and hated him accordingly.
Before he had been long at the estancia it began to be noticed that he followed the broods of young chickens about very assiduously, apparently taking great interest in their welfare, and even trying to entice them to follow him. A few newly-hatched