Birds of La Plata Birds of La Plata

THIS EDITION IS LIMITED TO 75O COPIES FOR SALE IN ENGLAND, IOO FOR SALE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND 35 PRESENTATION COPIES THE COLLECTED WORKS of W. H. HUDSON IN TWENTY-FOUR VOLUMES BIRDS OF LA PLATA BIRDS OF LA PLATA BY W. H. HUDSON WITH A NOTE BY R. B. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM MCMXXIII LONDON y TORONTO J. M. DENT & SONS LTD. NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON G? CO. Alí righls rcserved PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN W. H. HUDSON How many epoch-making works have gone into the pulping vat, since El Ombú appeared? There is no new way to pay oíd debts in spite of Massinger. From the beginning of the world good taste has governed all the arts. The greatest artists have been eminently sane. The so-called artistic temperament does not seem to have existed for them. They all went about, carefully carrying on the ordinary business of life, paying their debts (when they were able), and bearing their life’s burden patiently, knowing the end would set them free. Genius digs the foundation of the edifice it rears, not knowing consciously that it is building for eternity, and works so un- obtrusively that the passer-by seldom perceives a Parthenon is being built. Hudson neither broke into the mystery of our yeasty sea, heralded with paragraphs, or blare of rattling tin-trumpets, ñor was he, as was Paul of Tarsus, born free, but gained his freedom at great price, paying for it with neglect and poverty. He has emerged at last and takes his place in the first rank of English writers. Perhaps he is a class alone, for who that writes to-day, has his strange, searching charm, his great sim- plicity, his love of animáis; not as a man, being a god to them and knowing all things: but humble as themselves, humble because his genius shows him that in the scheme of nature one thing certifies the other, and the parís glorify the whole. Versed, in his youth, more in the use of the lazo and the boleadoras than the pen, I think his love of nature set him on vii viii W. H. HUDSON to write instinctively, just as a gaucho child, putting its little naked toe upon the horse’s knee, climbs up and rides because he is compelled to ride or to remain a maimed and crippled animal, travelling the plains on foot. So does a Magellanic owl, when once full-feathered, launch itself into the air and float off noiselessly. R. B. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM INTRODUCTION The matter contained in this work is taken from the two volumes of the Argentine Ornithology, published in 1888-9, an<^ was mY first book on the subject of bird life. The late Philip Lutley Sclater, who was at that time the chief authority in this country on South American Ornithology, collaborated with me in the work to the extent of arranging the material in accordance with the most popular System of classification, and also adding descriptions, synonymy, etc., of the species unknown to me. All this matter which he contributed in order to make the work a complete list, I have thrown out, along with the synonymy of the species described by me. And there was good reason for this simplification, seeing that we cannot have a complete list owing to the fací that fresh species are continually being added to it by the collectors; these species, new to the list, being mostly intruders or visitors found on the sub-tropical northern limits of the country. The original work (Argentine Ornithology} was thus out of date as soon as published, and the only interest it still retains for the reader is in the account of the birds’ habits con tributed by me. The work thus being no longer what it was, or was intended to be, a different title had to be found, and I cannot think of a more suitable one than The Birds of La Plata, which indicates that the species treated here are of the Plata country—a district of Argentina. Furthermore, it gives the book its proper place as a companion work to The Naturalist in La Plata. That book, also now oíd in years, has won a permanent place in the Natural History libraries, and treats of all forms of life observed by me; but as it was written after Argentine Ornithology, I kept bird subjects out of it as far as possible, so that the two works should not overlap. I may add that Argentine Ornithology was issued in a limited edition, and that copies are not now obtainable. ix INTRODUCTION One would imagine that during the long thirty years which have elapsed since these little bird biographies were first issued, other books on the same subject would have seen the light. For since my time many workers in this same field have appeared, Natural History Societies have been formed, and one among them, exclusively a bird-lovers’ association, issues a periodical founded on the Ibis pattern, and entitled El Hornero—The Oven-Bird. That, at all events, is what I supposed. But I hear that it has not been so: naturalists out there have been saying that my book of 1889 and that of Azara, composed a century earlier —The Birds of Paraguay and the River Píate—are the only works yet published which treat of the life habits of the birds in that región. This, I take it, is a good and sufficient reason for the re-issue of so oíd a work. The lives of birds is a subject of perennial interest to a large and an ever-increasing number of readers— to all those, in fact, who love a bird, that is to say, the living bird, not the dead stuffed specimen in a cabinet. It was well and wisely said by Professor Mivart in his great anatomical work that * ‘there is no such thing as a dead bird.” For the body is but the case, the habit, and when the life and soul have gone out of it, what is left is nothing but dust. To return for a few moments to the writer on birds who carne so long before me. Don Félix de Azara, a Spanish gentleman, a person of importance in his time, a traveller and author of several works, was yet able to find his chief pleasure in “con- versing with wild animáis in desert places in a remóte land.” The bird life of those then little-known countries had a special attraction for him, and he was a most excellent observer and described them carefully. His brief notes on their habits are all the better to read on account of his simple natural diction, so rare to find in the Spanish language, the beauty and sonority of which perpetually tempts the writer to prolixity and a florid style. Azara had one great advantage over me. He had his friend Noseda, a village priest in Paraguay, who shared his interest in the bird life of the district, and made copious notes of his INTRODUCTION xi observations, and these Azara could draw upon. Noseda was, indeed, a sort of Gilbert White (his contemporary), and had his “parish of Selborne” in a barbarous country rich in bird life. I had no Noseda to compare notes with, ñor in all the years of my life in the pampas did I ever have the happiness to meet with anyone to share my interest in the wild bird life of the country I was born in. So far the book and its history. It remains to add something concerning its subject—the character of the bird life of the district where my observations were made. It is like that of South America generally, but differs in the almost total absence of tropical forms, such as Trogons, Toucans, Puff-birds, Motmots, Todies, Jacamars, and Barbéis. The bird world has been divided by ornithologists into several geographical regions, and undoubtedly birds differ in widely-separated portions of the earth and, like the races of men, have the stamp of their country or continent on them. But the bird is a volatile being, and vast numbers refuse to belong to any particular región. Some are migratory, and travel to distant lands outside of the región assigned to them, the return journey in many cases covering a distance of 12,000 miles. That a bird should have its breeding and feeding, or summer and winter areas, 6,000 miles apart, seems almost incredible. Thus, in South America, which is called the Neotropical Región, there are numerous species that come from the adjoining región of North America, and among these are several species which breed in the arctic regions as high as latitude eighty to eighty-three or four degrees, yet after breeding fly south as far as the Southern extremity of Patagonia. Besides the strict migrants there are many birds of a wander- ing disposition, like the European Crossbills, the Waxwing, and the Short-eared Owl. They have the gipsy habit or the Columbus-like spirit of the poet’s Stork, who goes forth to explore heavens not his own and worlds unknown before. Finally, we have a multitude of species, both resident and migratory, belonging to families that have a world-wide dis- tribution. Among these are the Thrushes, Wrens, Pipits, Swal- lows, Finches, Crows, Swifts, Goatsuckers, Woodpeckers, xii INTRODUCTION Cuckoos, Owls, Hawks, Vultures, Herons, Storks, Plover, Snipe, Duck, Rails, Gulls, Cormorants and Grebes. These universally distributed families are always more numerous in the températe zones than in the tropics in relation to the entire number of species.

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