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-23- chickens, rabbits, and pigeons. Among the botanical specimens we found the cactus especially interesting. One kind is known as the barbed wire cactus, and was actually used to make barricades in war, before barbed wire was ever invented. The Shippens and Dr. Gray joined us for lunch. The Davises left late in the afternoon. At seven o'clock Dr. Marelli met us in the hotel, and told us we ought to be out in the Plaza watching the Passear. We went out, and joined the throng of young men and girls walking slowly around and around one corner of the Plaza. The girls usually went two by two; the men were lined up along the sidewalk to watch them go by, and they certainly gave them the once-over. There was a long double line of men, between whom the girls walked without any obvious self-consciousness - Frances and I were very embarrassed. It is the marriage market of Latin countries, and gives the young people a good chance to look each other over. We were told that it is bad form to pick a girl up, but if a man likes her looks he can arrange through mutual friends for an introduction. Dr. McDonagh, ichthyologist of the Museum, joined us after dinner, and we all went out to a little tent which we had noticed as we came into town in the morning, marked "Zoo - Circus". It was a small show, but interesting. Standard 42-foot ring, with the boxes adjacent to the ring curb. Two iron center poles, instead of the four customary in European circuses. The ground was cut in shallow terraces, instead of having the seats raised on bleachers. The troop was small, and included only one woman, who appeared solely as the hind legs of a calico zebra in a clown act. There were three property men in neat gray coats and white pants. The show gives three performances a day, the evening performance beginning at 9.45 and continuing until 11.20, with a 15-minute intermission during which the steel arena for the lion act is put up. There were two performing hyenas and seven lions. [[underline]] May 19 - La Plata [[/underline]] Bill and I went out to the Zoo in the morning to take some photographs. After lunch Dr. Marelli took us to his little home in the country, rather a bare little place but piled to the ceiling with books and pamphlets. We drank some of his delicious home made wine, and met his two sisters - keen-eyed middle-aged Italian women. About three we went to the Museum, famous all over the world for the research and publications that have been done there. Dr. McDonagh went around with us, showing us the celebrated hall of paleontology, with its dozens of Glyptodon fossils, the the [[sic]] skin of Mylodon, found in a Patagonian cave with the hair still on it, and enough of the flesh so that blood tests were actually made at the time. Found with it were hoofs of the small horse, and sharpened bones that seem to indicate that it was contemporary with man. Bones in the cave had been split, [[end page]]
