There Were Two Pintails, One Of Which Was The
Most Abundant Species In The Country; Also A Widgeon, A Lake Duck, A
Shoveller Duck, With Red Plumage, Grey Head And Neck, And Blue Wings;
And Two Species Of The Long-Legged Whistling Or Tree Duck.
Another
common species was the rosy-billed duck, now to be seen on ornamental
waters in England; and occasionally we saw the wild Muscovy duck,
called Royal duck by the natives, but it was a rare visitor so far
south.
We also had geese and swans: the upland geese from the
Megellanic Straits that came to us in winter - that is to say, our
winter from May to August. And there were two swans, the black-necked,
which has black flesh and is unfit to eat, and the white or Coscoroba
Swan, as good a table bird as there is in the world. And oddly enough
this bird has been known to the natives as a "goose" since the
discovery of America, and now after three centuries our scientific
ornithologists have made the discovery that it is a link between the
geese and swans, but is more goose than swan. It is a beautiful white
bird, with bright red bill and legs, the wings tipped with black; and
has a loud musical cry of three notes, the last prolonged note with a
falling inflection.
These were the birds we sought after in winter; but we could shoot for
the table all the year round, for no sooner was it the duck's pairing
and breeding season than another bird-population from their breeding-
grounds in the arctic and sub-arctic regions came on the scene -
plover, sandpiper, godwit, curlew, whimbrel, - a host of northern
species that made the summerdried pampas their winter abode.
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