LOCAL OBSERVATION 29 



remarkable. In Northern Spain the common grey partridge 

 ranges up to and breeds at 5000-6000 feet above the 

 sea, and very rarely comes below 2000 feet. It is a small, 

 dark-coloured bird with nearly black legs, and is by no 

 means common, Caccabis rufa being the partridge of the 

 country." ^ 



" /uiie 14M, 1892. 



" There is in my opinion no harm whatever in 

 killing the old male bustards * at any time up to the 

 end of IMay, and no excuse whatever for killing 

 hens after March ; but supposing that every British 

 officer from Gibraltar killed every bustard he shot 

 at between September and May 31st, I do not think 

 that it would materially affect the breed in Spain ; 

 for Andalucia is constantly reinforced from Estremadura 

 and La Mancha, and the natives really trouble very little 

 about those birds, though they will shoot at them or 

 at anything else, from the nest or not, when they get 

 the chance. 



" If any real harm is done to the breed of bustards 

 in Andalucia it is in the marisma, where almost every 

 herdsman carries a gun and squirts at everything." ' 



' To E. Cambridge Phillips, Esq. 



^ To the same. 



* The Great Bustard {Otis tarda), once an inhabitant of open 

 cultivated and uncultivated lands in Britain, now only an irregulat 

 visitor to this country, is shot by ' driving ' on the Andalucian 

 plains. 



