194 MEDITERRANEAN NOTES 



6 a.m., till nearly 8. Got another man, almost wholly 

 unintelligible ; steamed a few miles up under the north 

 hank. Dense fog came on that soon passed ofF. About 1 2 

 Saurin and I went off in the cutter up the river : a long, 

 fruitless pull, as we found it quite impossible to get 

 anywhere near land, immense flat muds stretching in all 

 directions. It came on showery. We did at last manage 

 to land on an island, where I had an ineffectual shot 

 at a short-eared owl, the only thing I saw within shot. 

 There are a vast number of wild-fowl and marsh birds, 

 but no means of getting at them. Saw marsh harrier, 

 merlin, short-eared owl, cormorant, wild duck, wigeon, 

 shoveler, teal, spoonbill, (.'') egret, curlew, redshank, whim- 

 brel, heron, dunlin, grey plover, meadow pipit, ringed- 

 plover, skylark, crested lark, white wagtail, avocet, goose 

 (sp. ?), snipe." 



" 'January i<^th. Very bright morning. Started in 

 steam launch a long way up the river Tagus, landed on 

 various islands, saw a great many wild-fowl and some 

 snipes, but totally unapproachable. Met an old shooter 

 in a little canoe, who told me that he had been shooting 

 wild-fowl and catching eels with a bunch of worms for 

 sixty years. He only had one teal." 



Cadiz 

 " Februayy yd. Went away in cutter to the Tro- 

 cadero, and some way up a creek on river towards Puerto 

 Real. Great flats with salt pans, not many birds." 



