The nests of Ravens, Kites, Buzzards, and Booted Eagles are hardly distinguishable from below, except that the eagle usually selects the main fork, the others building out on the lateral branches. In the crevices and foundations of all these large nests are often inserted the untidy, grass-built edifices of the chestnut-headed Spanish Sparrow (Passer salicicolus), a forest-loving species, not found in the haunts of men like his cousin of the streets, and having a special predilection for sharing the homes of the larger raptores, as our Sparrows at home build under the nests in a rookery.

The large birds of prey are always difficult to shoot, even at their nests: and for capturing them the circular steel-traps proved invaluable, saving much time and being almost certain in their action. The miseries of a puesto, or ambush, of an hour, or even two, lying on the burning sand, in the stifling heat of the underwood, to await the return of the birds, one does not forget. For minutes that pass like an eternity, the keen-eyed Kite will hover and sail overhead; meanwhile a hissing column of mosquitoes have focussed themselves over one's face: black ants, like small dumb-bells, and creeping things innumerable, penetrate up one's sleeve and down one's neck: while at the critical moment, when one must remain rigidly motionless, a huge hairy spider of hideous mien gently lowers itself on to one's nose.

A characteristic of the forests of Doñana are the enormous sand-hills—mountains of blown sand dazzling in the reflected sunlight, and devoid of green thing or trace of life, beyond the track of prowling Lynx or Mongoose, or the curious "broad-gauge" vestigia of the tortoise. Stay: there is a thin black strip of moving objects—they are all ants, and that is one of their great highways—a beaten track connecting two great industrial centres. Except on the chosen line—a mere strip barely an inch wide, though hundreds of yards in length—not another insect will be visible on the wastes of sand. To the selected route each member of their infinite community confines his course as systematically as the steamships of our great ocean lines. One cannot resist the temptation of interrupting this well-regulated microcosm. Instantly confusion spreads in the black ranks: around the point of obstruction the intercepted battalions spread out like a fan: the tumult and disorder extend backwards along either column till for yards the sand is carpeted with the fragments of a disorganized host. But these scattered units are each seeking to re-establish their lost continuity. The re-formed column deflects a little to pass on one side or the other (not both), and in a few minutes the "trade-route" has resumed its former monotonous regularity.

Firm and compacted as appears the substance of these sand-hills—the sandstone of a future age—it yet retains, to some extent, its shifty and unstable character. At intervals its masses elect to move onwards and to engulf forests over which, for centuries, they have impended. Immediately below where we sit, the ridge terminates, abrupt as a precipice. Two hundred yards beyond, the sloping sand-foot is studded with half-buried pines—several forest monarchs already entombed to their centres, alive, but struggling in their death-throes. Of others, farther back, only the topmost branches protrude, sere, yellow, and dead, from the devouring particles. And beneath those glistening sands, hidden far from sight, doubtless there rest the skeletons of buried forests of bygone days.

Just above us in the peak of the stone-pine under whose shade we enjoy the midday rest, is a huge platform of sticks—a deserted throne of the king of birds. Now this eyrie is deserted, the daylight shows through its centre, and the tree is occupied by different tenants—a pair of Cushats: before now we have seen them share the same tree with the tyrant. Bird-notes are hushed during the midday heat, and silence reigns over the forest: presently from afar comes the strident kark, kark of the Raven, and then from mid-air resounds the musical scream of a Kite floating in the heaven above.

The Orioles' nest I shortly afterwards discovered, built in a white-elm, at the extreme end of a long pendant branch, the whole of which it was necessary to cut down. This nest, however, was empty. The Golden Orioles do not lay till nearly the middle of May, and from the shyness of the old birds, and the aërial situation of the nest, their eggs are among the most difficult to obtain.

One circumstance deserves passing remark—the relatively smaller number of eggs laid in the south than is the case with many of the same species further north. In Spain, several of the warblers, &c. above mentioned, lay only four eggs; the Blackbird, as a rule, but three, and these much brighter coloured than at home.

II.—The Cistus-Plains and Prairies.

Leaving the pinal, or pine region, let us spend a fortnight in the open bush-land beyond. Passing successively the famous manchas of the Alameda Honda, the Rincon de los Carrizos, and Majáda Real—each coverts of repute, though all unknown to geographers and marked upon no map—we traverse next the forest-glades of the Angosturas, and enter upon a different region, where fresh landscapes and new beauties await appreciative eyes. Here the swelling sand-dunes trend away southwards—towards the sea. The dark bushy pine gives place to open heath and brushwood, stretching away to the horizon, here and there diversified with scattered clumps of cork-oak, aspen, wild-olive, and poplar.

Nearly all the brilliantly-plumaged birds which at this season lend a semi-tropical character to the Spanish avi-fauna, are spring-migrants—pouring across the straits during the months of March and April, and retiring to African latitudes in autumn. Here is a brief record, showing dates of arrival, &c., chiefly from the observations of one year (1891), but supplemented where necessary by those of previous springs, with a few incidental notes.

February 21st.—Many Swallows arrived: in thousands on 23rd—a complete nuisance while snipe-shooting. On February 28th some were already beginning to nest.

February 26th.—A single Hoopoe arrived: numerous by 3rd March. Also observed a Goshawk.

February 28th.—A pair of Egyptian Vultures, and many Lesser Kestrels were seen to-day.

March 1st.—Great Spotted Cuckoo, and a single Wheat-ear appeared. Many of the Wigeon and other ducks, and all Golden Plovers are now gone. Shot four Garganey.

March 8th.—First Serpent-Eagle (two more on 10th), and many Black Kites, in pinales. The White Wagtails entirely disappeared about this date. Landrail shot.

March 10th.—Hundreds of Wood-Pigeons—all gone next day. Shot a pair of Black Storks (1869).

March 13th.—Last Woodcock. Not one-fifth of the ducks now remain in marisma.

March 19th.—Shot Scop's Owl in garden at Jerez.

March 20th.—Observed Kentish and Lesser Ring Plovers, and shot Purple Heron. Flights of Cranes passing north.

March 26th.—Ring-Ouzel (Sierra Bermeja), and in same district, Booted Eagle on 29th, Woodchat 30th, and Rock-Thrush on April 3rd.

March 30th (1883).—Woodchats: and first Cuckoo heard in garden. Starlings, Thrushes and Sky-larks have all gone.

March 31st (1872).—Swarms of Bee-eaters, Eared and Russet Wheatears, and two or three Rollers.

March 31st (1891).—While away in sierra, the following birds have appeared: Savi's, Spectacled, and Subalpine Warblers (all obtained), Cirl-Buntings, Swifts.

April 3rd.—Nightingales in garden. They do not sing for the first few days. First eggs laid May 7th.

April 6th.—Montagu's Harrier arrived (the last Hen-Harrier shot on 10th). Demoiselle Crane shot.

April 8th.—Turtle-Doves in small flights, and many Bee-eaters and Rollers arrived. Last Snipe shot to-day.

April 9th.—Pratincoles, Whiskered and Lesser Terns.

April 10th.—Pair Marbled Ducks, one Nyroca Pochard, and an Egret shot. Observed White-faced Ducks.

April 16th.—Glossy Ibis—Zopiton.

April 20th.—The following have arrived within the last week or ten days. Great Sedge Warbler, Orphœan and Garden Warblers, Whitethroat, Ortolan, and Golden Orioles—the latter seen first to-day.

April 23rd.—Pair Hobbies observed—pinales.

April 25th.—Alpine Swifts passing over.

April 27th.—Shot Buff-backed Heron, Isla Menor: and found Bittern's nest with three eggs; also two of the Great Bustard, each with two eggs.

April 28th.—Night-Herons observed—marisma Gallega.

April 30th.—Shot the first Russet-necked Nightjar and observed Melodious Willow-Warblers (Hypolais polyglotta). Enormous passage of Swallows to-day. This is also the date when the Little Bittern and Squacco Heron are due.

May 3rd.—Black Terns appeared. The only other nesting species yet to arrive are the Spotted Flycatcher, Pallid Warbler (Hypolais opaca), and the remainder of the Nightjars, Rufous Warblers, &c.

May 4th.—Camp in mid-marisma. All this night, commencing about 10 P.M., a stream of migrating birds kept passing overhead. From the dark sky resounded for hours the cries of gulls and terns, sundry small land-birds, whimbrels, plovers and sandpipers of various species: besides harsher shrieks and notes that resembled those of hawks and herons of some kind.

Among the earlier breeders is the Spanish Green Woodpecker, which drills deep holes in the hard wood of cork-oak or olive, and lays six shining white eggs in March. Now (April) they had young, but rear a second brood in May. Though they are so abundant, yet the "tapping" sound characteristic of the Woodpeckers is not heard in the Spanish forests, for their food consists of ants and of the small, red and black beetles that cluster in every crevice of the rough cork-bark.

The Rollers were also laying in mid-April—here in hollow trees, elsewhere in crevices of rocks or ruins: but wherever their treasure may be, the silly birds are sure to disclose its position by their incessant "caterwauling," and anxious, tumbling flight. On the 17th April we found the first nest of the Southern Grey Shrike (Lanius meridionalis) in a high mastic-bush. The nest resembled that of the Missel-Thrush, the five eggs larger and more darkly marbled than those of the northern L. excubitor. Nests of the Woodchat (L. rufus) may be found in almost every bush from May 10th onward, and the Bee-eaters have then formed swarming colonies in the river-banks like Sand-Martins.

Such a spectacle would probably break the heart of an orthodox British gamekeeper; to preserve any fair head of game in presence of such an array of "vermin"—both powerful raptores and cunning egg-thieves—he would certainly assert to be impossible. So, in England, it probably would be; yet here our game-books record bags varying from 150 to 300 partridge, besides other game, in a day, and totals of from 1,000 to 1,200 head and upwards in a fortnight's shooting. Yet those who advocate the status quo in nature and condemn dogmatically any interference therewith by the hand of man, would be wrong in jumping to the conclusion that the co-existence in Spain of a considerable head of game with a host of their most powerful enemies, is any solid substantiation of their theories, in a general sense.

To this question of nature's balance of life we may devote a little space; it is seldom so simple as at first sight may appear. Here in Spain its solution depends on factors some of which do not exist and would have, consequently, no bearing at home; but the general features of the particular case in point may be summed up in three lines: (1) Spain is a land teeming with reptile-life; (2) The reptiles in the aggregate are the most deadly enemies to game; and (3) it is upon reptiles that the raptorial birds habitually prey.

Here are three or four examples extracted from our note-book:—

"April 23rd.—While on the sand-ridge overlooking the laguna de Santolalla, watching a pair of Marbled Ducks, some Crested Grebes, etc., heard subterranean scuffling and rumblings. Presently two rabbits bolted, and from a hole close by emerged the writhing tail of a great green lizard, backing out, and dragging, by an engulfed hind leg, a half-grown rabbit, too terrified to squeal. In some rushes we lost sight of the reptile, but two minutes later, put him out and shot him. The hapless rabbit was then gorged—head downwards."

"May 18th.—Dug out a Bee-eater's colony—some of the tunnels quite eight or ten feet deep. In two of the nests found snakes, coiled up. One big black fellow entombed the remains of four or five Bee-eaters, swallowed entire, besides many eggs. The smaller snake contained eggs and a brace of Field-mice."

"May 23rd.—Heard two Partridges in a great state of excitement; coming up, saw a snake in the act of devouring a half-feathered chick. The brute, which only measured three feet, nine inches, already contained four young Partridges!"

"June 9th.—Shot a huge Coluber, six feet two inches, greatly distended in centre. On opening him found two nearly full-grown rabbits, swallowed whole."

Food of Spanish Raptorial Birds—Analyses of examinations of their crops—as follows:—

The large eagles prey on game all the year round; the smaller species chiefly on reptiles and small birds, secondarily on game. In winter the latter depart to Africa.

Falcons.—The smaller species are chiefly insectivorous—the Lesser Kestrel and Eleanora Falcon exclusively so. The Common Kestrel and Hobby also take small lizards and snakes. From the crop of one of the large and powerful Falcons (Falco punicus) which, when shot, was in the act of pursuing a Hare, we have taken nearly a score of Blindworms.

It is corroborative of the predominance of reptiles and insects in their diet, that so many of the raptores leave Spain almost entirely in winter. Both the Booted and Serpent-Eagles, Black Kite, Montagu's Harrier, Lesser Kestrel, and others, migrate at that season to Africa.

III.—By Lake and Lagoon.

Spain is not a land of lakes; the so-called lagoons are often mere accumulations of flood-water, the result of the winter's rains which occupy shallow basins, or swamp the low-lying lands. Many of these hybernal lagoons dry up entirely as the hot weather sets in; others remain in greatly reduced proportions, hidden, as a rule, amidst reeds and dense aquatic herbage.

Few Spanish lakes cover any considerable area, though the Lagunas de Janda, near Trafalgar, those of Fuentepiedra near Malaga, and the Albufera of Valencia, are exceptions.

The Laguna de Janda, an inland sea of yellow muddy water, surrounded by belts of sedge and cane-brake stretching away for miles, is a well-known wildfowl resort, abounding in winter with Grey Geese, ducks, and divers of many kinds, besides Snipe, Rails, Bitterns, and aquatic birds in all their varieties. The dry plateaux on the north are a notable resort of Little Bustard; and large bags of Quail and Golden Plover are there, at times, secured. But this is well-known ground, and having been described by others, we will only add that in spring Janda is noteworthy as one of the breeding-stations of the Crane (Grus communis), which still nests in some numbers amidst the vast area of reed-beds and thick swamp that lie towards Casa Vieja.

Of the Mar Menor of Cartagena, the Albufera of Valencia, and other noteworthy wildfowl resorts lying outside our limits, we can speak with less certainty, not having had such opportunities of exploration as in the districts to the S. and W. The Albufera appears to be the western limit of the range of the handsome Red-crested Pochard (Fuligula rufina), a duck we have sought in vain in Andalucia; but with this exception, and that of a few stragglers, such as Hydrochelidon leucoptera and other species of more Eastern distribution, the spring avifauna of these localities does not materially differ from that of the more western marismas and lagoons described either in the present chapter or in those entitled "The Bætican Wilderness."

The lakes of Doñana are of no great extent, the largest being the Lagunas de Santolalla, and the broad, reed-choked Rocina de la Madre extending towards Rocio, all of which we have explored at different seasons.

The Garganey are fairly numerous on these lagoons in spring; yet though—especially in wet seasons—they certainly breed there, we have never discovered a nest. The marshmen (who know the different kinds of duck as well as most people) assert positively that in very wet springs a few pairs of the Common Teal also remain to breed.

While driving the ducks, five birds of peculiar appearance flew over—they were Glossy Ibis, and passed within shot of Felipe, who, however, failed to stop them. This was the only instance of our meeting with the Ibis—a singular circumstance, as in wet seasons they nest in numbers in the upper marisma. Their deep blue eggs have several times been brought to us while bustard-shooting on the Isla Menor, &c., the boys who brought them saying the nests were in the thick cañas, and not on low trees, where the small herons breed. Very curiously, in all the time we spent in the marisma, we never again saw this bird in spring, or found a single nest ourselves.

These singular ducks, we found, were well known to the guardas as "patos porrones" (porron—a knob), and subsequently found several pairs at the Laguna de Medina, a lake near Jerez, where, on the 23rd May, they were evidently breeding. The lake was also occupied "by numbers of the Great Crested Grebe (Podicipes cristatus), quaint-looking birds in their full summer-dress. The nests of the Little Grebe may be found floating in every rushy pool.

The heron-tribe is strongly represented in Andalucia; in spring and summer almost every European form adorns these remote and marshy regions. During May the Buff-backed Herons were flying all over the plains in packs of a score to fifty or more, apparently in quest of a settlement; the pretty little Squacco Herons had then shifted their quarters from the marisma to the rushy lagoons, and many nests were ready for eggs in the juncales; but all this group breed late, none laying much before June.

So retiring are the nocturnal species that it is difficult to flush them without a dog; yet they cannot compare, in this respect, with their neighbours, the Crakes and Rails, which also abound in the Spanish morass—the Water-Rail and Spotted Crake most numerous, Baillon's Crake rather less so, and the Little Crake the scarcest. All these are pointed and 'roded' keenly by native dogs, but their skulking powers are a match for the staunchest. Mataperros—"kill-dogs"—is their Spanish nickname, their thin, curiously compressed bodies resembling in section that of one's hand held vertically, enabling them to glide like rats through the thickest growth of flags and aquatic herbage.

The nests of all the Rails are hard to find; but to identify the precise owner of each is a thousand-fold harder. Nests and eggs of all being closely alike, an unidentified clutch is worthless; but the man who can work this out knee-deep amidst mud and stagnant water, under a broiling sun, has patience that nothing can withstand, nor any obstacle resist.

Perhaps the most interesting birds at this season are the newly-fledged young of the Raptores. The young Imperial Eagles are of a beautiful tawny colour, and during the mid-day heat frequent the trees where they were hatched. We also obtained young Kites in the same way—very handsome birds, much ruddier than the old ones in April. The young of M. migrans, on the other hand, are less pleasing than their parents, being, in fact, a pale, rather "washed-out" reproduction of them. Towards the end of the month (June) the young Montagu's Harriers are on the wing; they have dark brown backs, each feather edged with chestnut, a white nape, and orange-tawny breast. Many of the young of the Marsh-Harrier are uniformly very dark, bronze-black, with rich orange crowns—strikingly handsome birds. Some have also patches of the latter colour on the scapulars, others on the breast—they vary greatly, no two are alike. This species is not easy to understand; one imagines that these very dark specimens are all young birds; that the old females are lighter brown with yellow heads, and that the very old males acquire half-blue wings and tail—I shot one of these latter with the whole head pure white, each feather streaked centrally with black. (See photo at p. 242.) But how is one to account for an individual—otherwise uniformly black—having a perfectly developed blue tail and secondaries?

During June we were surprised to find the Green Sandpiper tolerably numerous in the Coto Doñana. It was a very solitary species, a single bird frequenting almost each small pool or water-hole far out among the scrub. We at first imagined the females must be sitting, but all attempts to find the nests were of course futile. The Wood-Sandpiper was observed, on passage, in May.

NOTES ON THE HISTORY OF THE "GITANOS."

From their earliest appearance in Spain the roving bands of the Rommany were found to be a public nuisance; but so rapidly grew the evil weed and took root in the soil, that by the middle of the fifteenth century the gypsies had established a rudely-organized system of violence, robbery and roguery from Biscay to the Mediterranean. The country roads were unsafe, infested with dark-skinned highwaymen; while rural districts were subjected to wholesale depredation, bands of these outcasts settling themselves in the adjacent hills, wastes, or forests, whence they plundered and virtually beleaguered the sparse and defenceless villages of all the country around. Once established amidst the sierras and wildernesses, it was no easy matter to dislodge them, or even to hold them in check. Spain has ever been a land of the guerilla—little war—and of the guerillero; and the gypsies, though by no means a warlike race, were not lacking in courage and in those qualities of hardihood and dash which constitute the most dangerous guerilleros. They possessed, moreover, the strength of union, an Ishmaelitish bond of brotherhood which held the outlaws together, while dividing them as by a great gulf from the peoples amidst whom they had come to dwell. They had also their secret language. Neither civil nor military power could make itself effective against "Will-o'-the-wisps," who are here to-day, gone to-morrow, whose homes were the forest-thicket and mountain-cave, who, with their fast and trusty horses and donkeys (their "stock-in-trade") could transport their whole tribe in dead of night to distant places with a speed almost equal to that of the wild beasts of the sierras, to whom they were so near akin.

The bitterness of hatred which was cherished by the gitanos towards all of gentile race, appears incomprehensible, unless it springs from some old-time "first cause," the nature of which is long forgotten. Treacherous, cruel and vindictive, they had the wit to conceal their ill-will beneath soft words, and thus obtained means of committing atrocities against the "gentile," the records of which make one shudder.

Amongst the various devices employed by the gitanos to plunder their victims, may be mentioned the following:—

Hokkano Baro.—The great trick, or swindle, varying from the "confidence trick" in its multifarious forms, up to the boldest and most barefaced deceptions, often on a grand scale.

La Baji, or, in Spanish, buena ventura.—Fortune-telling, by chiromancy, necromancy, and other divinations.

Ustilar Pastelas.—Stealing by legerdemain or sleight of hand.

Querelar Nasela.—The evil eye.

The gitanos were, and are divided into two classes: one section have more or less settled colonies in the Spanish towns and cities, where they dwell in quarters apart from the natives, known as gitanerias, wherein they ply their trade of tinkers, horse-dealers and shearers, sorcerers, and general thieves; and from whence, in pursuance of their inveterate vagabondism, they sally forth from time to time to attend distant fairs and markets to dispose of their stolen goods; and, as occasion arises, to perpetrate fresh crimes. The other section is more exclusively nomadic, roaming at large over the wilds of Spain, having no home save the shelter of forest or sierra, and to some extent actually migratory.

"Such visitors, however, were always encouraged to a certain point, and by this and various other means the gitanos acquired connections which frequently stood them in good stead in the hour of need. What availed it to the honest labourers of the neighbourhood, or the citizens of the town to make complaints to the Corregidor respecting thefts and frauds committed by the gitanos when perhaps the sons of that very Corregidor frequented the nightly dances at the gitanería, and were deeply enamoured of some of the dark-eyed singing girls? What availed complaints when perhaps a gypsy sybil, the mother of those very girls, had free admission to the house of the Corregidor at all times and seasons, and spa'ed the buena ventura of his daughters, promising them counts and dukes, or Andalucian knights in marriage, or prepared philtres for his lady by which she was always to reign supreme in the affections of her husband? And above all, what availed it to the plundered to complain that his mule or horse had been stolen when the gitano robber, perhaps the husband of the sybil and the father of the black-eyed Gitanillas, was at that moment actually in treaty with my lord the Corregidor himself, to supply him with some splendid, thick-maned, long-tailed steed at a small price, to be obtained, as the reader may well suppose, by an infraction of the laws? The favour and protection which the gitanos experienced from persons of high rank is alluded to in the Spanish laws, and can only be accounted for by the motives above detailed."

The beginning of the seventeenth century saw the evil still on the increase, despite repressive measures. Bands of these human fiends, many hundreds strong, roamed over the highlands of Castile and Arragon, and were only dispersed, after plundering and devastating the country, when sufficient military force had at length been collected. The gypsies speedily searched out the richest provinces of the land—New Castile, La Mancha, Estremadura, Murcia, Valencia and Andalucia, and troubled but little the poor, wild, mountain-regions of the Asturias, Galicia, and the hill-country of Biscay.