La Tapera, a native estancia - Don Gregorio Gandara - His grotesque
appearance and strange laugh - Gandara's wife and her habits and pets -
My dislike of hairless dogs - Gandara's daughters - A pet ostrich - In
the peach orchard - Gandara's herds of piebald brood mares - His
masterful temper - His own saddle-horses - Creating a sensation at
gaucho gatherings - The younger daughter's lovers - Her marriage at our
house - The priest and the wedding breakfast - Demetria forsaken by her
husband
CHAPTER XII
THE HEAD OF A DECAYED HOUSE
The Estancia Canada Seca - Low lands and floods - Don Anastacio, a
gaucho exquisite - A greatly respected man - Poor relations - Don
Anastacio a pig-fancier - Narrow escape from a pig - Charm of the low
green lands - The flower called _macachina_ - A sweet-tasting bulb
- Beauty of the green flower-sprinkled turf - A haunt of the golden
plover - The _bolas_ - My plover-hunting experience - Rebuked by a
gaucho - A green spot, our playground in summer and lake in winter - The
venomous toad - like _Ceratophrys_ - Vocal performance of the toad-like
creature - We make war on them - The great lake battle and its results
CHAPTER XIII
A PATRIARCH OF THE PAMPAS
The grand old man of the plains - Don Evaristo Penalva, the Patriarch -
My first sight of his estancia house - Don Evaristo described - A
husband of six wives - How he was esteemed and loved by every one - On
leaving home I lose sight of Don Evaristo - I meet him again after
seven years - His failing health - His old first wife and her daughter,
Cipriana - The tragedy of Cipriana - Don Evaristo dies and I lose sight
of the family
CHAPTER XIV
THE DOVECOTE
A favourite climbing tree - The desire to fly - Soaring birds-A
peregrine falcon - The dovecote and pigeon-pies - The falcon's
depredations - A splendid aerial feat - A secret enemy of the dovecote -
A short-eared owl in a loft - My father and birds - A strange flower -
The owls' nesting-place - Great owl visitations
CHAPTER XV
SERPENT AND CHILD
My pleasure in bird life - Mammals at our new home - Snakes and how
children are taught to regard them - A colony of snakes in the house -
Their hissing confabulations - Finding serpent sloughs - A serpent's
saviour - A brief history of our English neighbours, the Blakes
CHAPTER XVI
A SERPENT MYSTERY
A new feeling about snakes - Common snakes of the country - A barren
weedy patch - Discovery of a large black snake - Watching for its
reappearance - Seen going to its den - The desire to see it again - A
vain search - Watching a bat - The black serpent reappears at my feet -
Emotions and conjectures - Melanism - My baby sister and a strange
snake - The mystery solved
CHAPTER XVII
A BOY'S ANIMISM
The animistic faculty and
