On the Birds of the Rio Negro of Patagonia.
By W.H. Hudson, CMZS. Published in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 16 April 1872
Edited by David Dewar

I wrote a few days ago to inform Mr. Sclater that I had returned from Patagonia, and had determined to send to him all the specimens, or at least duplicates of all the specimens collected, as well as my notes on them. I now forward them.

My observations have been confined to the valley of the Rio Negro and to the adjacent high grounds. I advanced altogether not much over a hundred miles from the sea.

I met with one hundred and twenty-six species of birds altogether on the Rio Negro; but of these, ninety-three are also found in the Buenos Ayrean Pampas. I therefore met with only thirty-three species peculiar to Patagonia; and as some of these are very rarely seen, I did not succeed in obtaining them all. This is certainly a very insignificant number; but in a country with an excessively dry climate, the watercourses few and widely separated, an arid sandy soil, and scanty, dwarfish vegetation, it is impossible that there should be many species of birds. Still, had I been enabled to advance one or two hundred miles further, I am confident that this collection would have exhibited a far greater variety, as the country becomes much more thickly wooded in the interior. I did not succeed in obtaining specimens of the Rhea darwini. It is called by the Indians Molu Chinque, meaning Dwarf Chinque, the name of the common species being Chinque. They are found over the whole country, from the Rio Negro to the Straits of Magellan, and are also met with, but rarely, north of the river. They were formerly exceedingly numerous along the Rio Negro; but a few years ago their feathers rose to an exorbitant price. Gauchos and Indians found that hunting the ostrich was their most lucrative employment; and consequently these noble birds were pursued unceasingly, and slaughtered in such numbers that they have been nearly exterminated wherever the nature of the country admits of their being chased. I was so anxious to obtain specimens of this bird that I engaged ten or twelve Indians, by offering a liberal award, to hunt for me; they went out several times, but failed to capture a single adult bird.

A few facts I have been able to gather in reference to them may not prove uninteresting, as the R. darwini is but imperfectly known. When hunted it frequently attempts to elude the sight by suddenly squatting down amongst the bushes; and when lying close amid the grey-leaved bushes that cover the country it frequents, it very easily escapes the sight. When hotly pursued it possesses the same remarkable habit as the R. americana of raising the wings alternately and holding them erect; it also manifests the same facility for suddenly doubling, in order to avoid its pursuers. It runs more swiftly than the common species, but is also more quickly exhausted. When running, the R. americana carries the neck erect or slightly sloping forward; the R. darwini carries it stretched forward almost horizontally, making it appear smaller than it is. From this habit it is said to derive the vernacular name of Dwarf Ostrich. They go in flocks of from three or four to thirty or more individuals. I have not been able to learn if the males fight together as do those of the R. americana, or if they possess like that species a call note. The strange trumpeting cry of the R. americana is often heard after they have been hunted and scattered in all directions; it is an indescribable sound, and resembles somewhat the hollow heavy sigh with which a bull often ends his bellowing, and appears to fill the air, so that it is impossible to tell from which quarter it proceeds.

A number of females lay in one nest, the nest being merely a slight depression lined with a little dry rubbish; as many as fifty eggs are sometimes found in one nest. But the R. darwini, as well as the common species, lays many stray eggs, at a distance from the nest. I inspected a number of eggs brought in by a party of hunters, and was surprised at the great differences amongst them in size, form, and colour. The average size of the eggs was the same as those of the common species; in shape they were more or less oval or elliptical, scarcely two being found precisely alike. When newly laid, the eggs are of a deep rich green, and the shell possesses a fine polish. They very soon fade, however; and first the side exposed to the sun assumes a dull pale mottled green; this colour again changes to a yellowish, and again to a pale stone-blue, becoming at last almost white. The comparative age of each egg in the nest may be told by the colour of its shell.

When the females have finished laying, the male sits on and hatches the young. The young are hatched with the legs feathered to the toes; these feathers are not shed from the legs, but are gradually worn off as the bird grows old by continual friction against the stiff shrubs amid which they live.

I met with a species of hawk so remarkable in its structure and habits that I cannot refrain from giving a short notice of it, though, to my intense disappointment, I did not succeed in getting any specimens of it. The upper plumage is grey, the wings and under plumage white; the tail is long; the wings very blunt, and so short that when on the wing the bird rushes through the air with great violence. They are seen in pairs, sitting on the top of a bush, and at long intervals through the day suddenly burst into a loud excited chorus of notes, which resembles more the language of a Passerine bird than of a hawk. Whenever I approached one, it would utter a loud, long cry of alarm, and go on repeating it till, before I was within shot, it would fly off, and take up its position on a distant tree. I saw about a dozen individuals, and followed them about several days, but in vain.

The condor is met with occasionally on the Atlantic coast; I saw but one individual, and was surprised to find him proof against several charges of shot.

The song of the male Diuca finch is the sweetest I have heard in Patagonia, with two exceptions — that of the Cardinal amarillo and of the Calandria blanca, one who knows by heart ‘the songs of all the winged choristers.’ In summer, when these finches live in pairs thinly scattered over the country, the song of the male is the first indication of the approach of day. When the profound stillness of midnight yet reigns and the thick darkness that pre cedes the dawn envelopes earth, suddenly the noise of this little bird is heard wonderfully sweet and clear. In this quiet hour the song may be heard at a great distance, and is composed of half a dozen notes, repeated at short intervals till the day has fully dawned. But in winter, when they live in companies, their great singing time is in the evening, when the flock has gathered in some large thick-foliaged bush, which they have chosen for a winter roosting place. This winter evening song is very different from that heard in summer, the notes appearing sharper, and uttered in a wild and rapid manner. A little after sunset they burst into a concert, which lasts several minutes, sinking and growing louder by turns, and in which it is quite impossible to distinguish the song of any individual. After a few minutes of silence, the singing is suddenly renewed, and again almost as suddenly ended. For an hour after sunset this fitful and impetuous singing is continued. Close by a house I lived in several months were three large chanar bushes, where a multitude of these finches roosted every night; and they never missed singing a night, however cloudy, or cold, or rainy the weather was. So fond did they seem of this charming habit that when I would approach the bushes or stand beneath them, the alarm caused by my presence would interrupt the performance but a few moments; for suddenly they would burst almost simultaneously into singing, the birds all the time pursuing each other through the bushes often within a foot of my head.

The Patagonian calandria closely resembles the Buenos Ayrean calandria, but is smaller, the plumage deeper grey; the eye is also a darker green. When a person approaches the nest, the parent birds manifest their anxiety by perching and hopping on the twigs within a yard or two of his head, but without uttering any sound; the Buenos Ayres species, when alarmed, utters incessantly a loud, harsh, angry cry. Neither of these species will live in confinement.

The vocal performance of the Patagonian bird is characterised by the same apparently infinite variety as is that of the Buenos Ayrean bird. It would scarcely be possible for me to give an adequate idea of its powers in a description. The singing of the Patagonian species is perhaps inferior, his voice being less powerful than that of the other species; his mellow or clear notes are often mingled with shrill ones resembling the songs or cries of various birds. While incapable of notes so loud or harsh as those of the Buenos Ayres bird, or of changes so wild or sudden, he possesses even a greater variety of sweet notes; day after day, for months, I heard them singing, and I never once listened to them for any length of time without hearing some note or notes that I had never heard before. I have often observed that when a bird, while singing, emits a few of these new notes, he seems surprised and delighted with them; for after a silent pause he repeats them again and again a vast number of times, as if to impress them on his memory. When he once more resumes his varied singing, for hours, and sometimes for days, the expression he has discovered is still favourite, and recurs with the greatest frequency. Many individuals seem to possess a peculiar style of singing; and they seem more or less able to borrow or imitate each other’s notes; sometimes all the birds frequenting a thicket will be heard constantly repeating, for many days, a few particular notes as if they possessed no other song, while in other localities these notes will not be heard at all. The bird sits on the summit of a bush when singing; and its music is heard in all seasons, and in all weathers, from dawn till dark; but he usually sings in a leisurely unexcited manner, remaining silent a long interval after every five or six or a dozen notes, and apparently listening to his brother performers. These snatches of melody often seem like a prelude or promise of something better coming; there is in them such exquisite sweetness, such variety, that the hearer is ever expecting a fuller measure; and still the bird opens its bill to delight and disappoint him, as if not yet ready to begin.

I send you one specimen of the beautiful Calandria blanca. I do not know if any examples of this bird have ever been examined by naturalists. It is by no means numerous in Patagonia; certainly nothing was known of its song; but the pleasure I felt in making the discovery of its vocal powers it would be idle of me to attempt to portray. In October, a few days before leaving the Rio Negro, I was one morning walking through the thick woods of chanar, when my attention was suddenly arrested by the song of a bird issuing from a bush close by, a song to which I listened with astonishment and delight, so totally different, so vastly superior to the song of all other birds, whether native or foreign, to which I had............