MEDITERRANEAN NOTES 171 



"Saw black vulture,* flamingo, purple and squacco 

 herons, red-crested whistling duck, and hooded crow, 

 besides birds seen yesterday. Found many nests of the 

 last-named in the tamarisks by side of river ; one con- 

 tained two young, which we brought home ; only one 

 flamingo seen. We shot two young L. leucophieus, 



and two coots. M found a nest of the short-toed 



lark with three eggs." 



"May list. Lowering gloomy day. We drove out 

 to Ouarta to see the festa of S. Helena, the patroness of 

 the village. There was a fear of rain, so the women 

 were not nearly so gorgeously arrayed as usual at these 

 festas. About seventy yoke of oxen decked with flowers 

 and little holy pictures, lemons, etc., marched in the pro- 

 cession of the saint. We were taken by the host, Signor 

 L. Rossi Vitelli, into his house, and introduced to his 

 wife and family ; all most civil. We saw the procession 

 from his upper windows. It blew hard at night." 



" May 12nd. Gloomy, threatening day, with sirocco 

 wind. I went off to La ScafFa about 9 a.m., got Antonio 



* The vultures of Spain — other than the Lammergeier — are three 

 in number : the Black Vulture ( Vultiir monachus), a solitary, tree- 

 nesting species, which lays but one egg; the Griffon Vulture {Gyps 

 fulvus), which nests colonially on rocks, and lays one, or more rarely 

 two eggs ; and the Egyptian Vulture {Neophron pennoptert/s), which 

 nests in rocks, sometimes on disused nests of other large birds, and 

 usually lays two eggs ; but in no species are these nesting situations 

 invariable. 



