Bulletin - United States National Museum - si-pddr - Smithsonian ...

8 BULLETIN 133, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM
and often dangerous to cross, wind about through the marshy flats.
Across the level pampa inland a few slight elevations of a meter
or so are grown with groves of native trees that form veritable
islands in an apparently limitless level plain, otherwise broken
only by widely scattered estancias with their plantations of eucalypts.
While at Lavalle it was my good fortune to spend a number of
days at the Estancia Los Yngleses, the home of the late Ernest
Gibson, an ornithologist well known for his careful and painstak-
ing observations on the birds of this region. The Gibson estate is
located about 6 kilometers south of Lavalle, and is surrounded by
well-established groves of eucalyptus in addition to the lower tala,
ombu, and coronillo trees native to the pampa. For work quarters
it was my privilege to occupy a little building erected by Mr. Gibson
for a study and museum. From this hospitable point I crossed on
November 3 to the coast where camp was made in a little hut, 25
kilometers south of the northern point of Cabo San Antonio, on
property belonging to the Estancia Tuyu. Here a broad sand
beach extended north and south as far as the eye could reach, bor-
dered inland by a stretch of shifting sand dunes 400 meters wide,
with a marshy swale intervening between the dunes and the more
elevated grazing lands beyond. Like most of this coastal region,
this tract was visited only by occasional herdsmen or by parties from
one of the estancias. Shore birds were encountered in migration
from the north, with a great flight of long-tailed and parasitic
jaegers, while large bands of pintails and other ducks came up from
the south. A tremendous storm that endured for two days interfered
somewhat with field work. On November 8 I returned to Los
Yngleses, and November 11 continued to Lavalle for a few more
days at the mouth of the Ajo and the vicinity. On November 16 I
crossed by stage coach to Santo Domingo on the railroad, a distance
of 18 leagues across the green plains, with only an occasional grove
or an estancia to break the line of the horizon. For the first half
of the distance marshes were frequent, but beyond the land became
higher. The great storm of 10 days before was reported to have
killed 300,000 sheep in the Province of Buenos Aires alone, and in
many places we passed piles of their bodies, (Pis. 6 and 7,)
On November 17 I returned by rail to Buenos Aires, and on the
20th left again for the south. On the following morning the train
passed through the barren hills of the Sierra de la Ventana and
arrived in Bahia Blanca, where the route turned west. After leav-
ing the level flats near the sea the railroad traversed an arid section
slightly elevated and rolling, covered with low scrub and occasional
tracts of scanty grass. At Rio Colorado descent was made to the.
stream valley of that name, and continued along it to Fortin Uno^
where we crossed another elevated region to the valley of the Rio