il.:
biguy, when at the llio Negro, made great exertions to procure
this bird, but never had the good fortune to succeed,
l i e mentions it in his Travels,* and proposes (in case,
I presume, of a specimen being obtained) to call it Rhea
pennata: a fuller notice was given long before in Dobriz-
hofter’s Account of the Abiponcst {a.d. 1749). He says,
“ You must know, moreovei', that Emus differ in size
and habits in different tracts of land ; for those that inhabit
the plains of Buenos Ayres and Tuouman are larger, and
have black, white, and gray feathers; those near to the
Strait of Magellan are smaller and more beautiful, for their
white feathers are tipped with black at the extremity, and
their black ones in like manner terminate in white.”
A very singular little bird, lately described by St. Hilaire
and Lesson under the name of Tinochorus EschschoUdi, is
here common. In its habits, general appearance, and structure,
it nearly equally partakes of the character of a
quail and a snipe. Yet these two birds are widely contrasted
in the form of their beaks, wings, and legs. The
Tinochorus is found in the whole of southern South
America, wherever there are sterile plains, or open dry
pasture-land. AA’e saw it as far south as the inland
plains of Patagonia at Santa Cruz, in lat. 50°. On the
western side of the Cordillera near Concepcion, where the
forest land changes into an open country, this bird is found:
from that point throughout Chile, as far as Copiapo, it
frequents the most desolate places, where scarcely another
living creature can exist. They are found either in pairs
or small flocks of five or six; hut near the Sierra Ventana I
saw as many as thirty or forty together. Upon being
* V o l. ii., p . 7 6 .— AVhen a t th e R io N e g ro , w e h e a rd m u c h o f th e in d e fa
tig ab le la b o u r s o f th is n a tu r a li s t. M . D ’A lc id e D 'O rb ig n y , d u r in g th e
y e a rs 1826 to 183.3, tr a v e ll e d s e v e ra l la rg e p o r tio n s o f S o u th A m e ric a ,
a n d h a s m a d e a c o lle c tio n , a n d is n ow p u b lis h in g tlie re s u lts o n a s c a le o f
m ag n ific en c e , w h ic h a t o n c e p la c e s h im in th e lis t o f A m e ric a n tra v e lle rs
se c o n d o n ly to H um b o ld t.
f Vol. i. (E n g lis h t r a n s la tio n ) , p . 314.
approaclied they squat close, and then are very difficult to
be distinguished; so that they often rise quite unexpectedly.
AVhen feeding they walk rather slowly, with their legs wide
apart. They dust themselves in roads and sandy places.
They frequent particular spots, and may be found there
day after day. AVhen a pair are together, if one is shot the
other seldom rises; for these birds, like partridges, only take
wing in a flock. In all these respects, in the muscular
gizzard adapted for vegetable food, in the arched beak and
flesliy nostrils, short legs and form of foot, the Tinochorus
has a close affinity with quails. But directly the bird is
seen flying, one’s opinion is changed; the long, pointed
wings, so different from those in the gallinaceous order, the
irregular manner of flight, and plaintive cry uttered at the
moment of rising, recal the idea of a snipe. The sportsmen
of the Beagle unanimously called it the shortbilled snipe.
T. 0 this genus, or rather to that of the sandpiper, it approaches,
as Mr. Gould informs me, in the shape of its
wing, the length of the scapulars, the form of the tail, which
closely resembles that of Tringa hypoleucos, and in the
general colour of the plumage. The male bird, however,
has a black mark on its breast, in the form of a yoke, which
may be compared to the horseshoe on the breast of the English
partridge. The nest is said to be placed on the borders
of lakes, although the bird itself is an inhabitant of the
parched desert.
The Tinochorus is closely related to some other South
American birds. Two species of the genus Attagis, are in
almost every respect ptarmigans in their habits; one in
Tierra del Fuego, above the limits of forest land; the other
just beneath the snow line on the Cordillera of Central
Chile. A bird of another closely-allied genus, Chionis alba,
which solitary species was long thought to form a family by
Itself, is an inhabitant of the antarctic regions; it feeds on
sea-weed and shells on the tidal rooks, xilthough not webfooted,
from some unaccountable taste it is frequently met
with far out at sea. This small family of birds is one of
'HI