I was angry at being rebuked by an ignorant ruffianly gaucho, who like
most of his kind would tell lies, gamble, cheat, fight, steal, and do
other naughty things without a qualm. Besides, it struck me as funny
to hear the golden plover, which I wanted for the table, called "God's
little birds," just as if they were wrens or swallows or humming-
birds, or the darling little many-coloured kinglet of the bulrush
beds. But I was ashamed, too, and gave up the chase.
The nearest of the moist green low-lying spots I have described as
lying south of us, between our house and Canada Seca, was not more
than twenty minutes' walk from the gate. It was a flat, oval-shaped
area of about fifty acres, and kept its vivid green colour and
freshness when in January the surrounding land was all of a rusty
brown colour. It was to us a delightful spot to run about and play on,
and though the golden plover did not come there it was haunted during
the summer by small flocks of the pretty buff-coloured sandpiper, a
sandpiper with the habits of a plover, one, too, which breeds in the
arctic regions and spends half the year in southern South America.
This green area would become flooded after heavy rains. It was then
like a vast lake to us, although the water was not more than about
three feet deep, and at such times it was infested with the big
venomous toad-like creature called _escuerzo_ in the vernacular, which
simply means toad, but naturalists have placed it in quite a different
family of the batrachians and call it _Ceratophrys ornata_ It is toad-
like in form but more lumpish, with a bigger head; it is big as a
man's fist, of a vivid green with black symmetrical markings on its
back, and primrose-yellow beneath.
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