382 Lord Lilford on the Ornithology of Spain. 



south at that season are always the largest, and are distinguished 

 by the cazadores as '' Moriscos." In April 1864 I found the 

 Great Bustard in great numbers in the immediate neighbour- 

 hood of Seville ; and a brother ' Ibis ' can bear witness to our vain 

 efforts to procure a specimen, and to the fact that a fine male 

 was brought to our hotel which weighed 32 lbs. English. The 

 Great Bustard is termed in Spanish '' Abutarda" as has been 

 often said ; the Little Bustard is known as " Sisson," while the 

 Stone-Curlew is " Alcaravan." 



We quitted Aranjuez on May 27th, leaving Manuel and M. 

 Michel to collect and skin birds for some days, as it was my 

 intention to remain a short time in Madrid before going to San 

 Ildefonso, and Manuel had insisted that it would be unwise to 

 leave Aranjuez for good without having visited Villamejor, on 

 the road between that place and Toledo, where he expected a 

 rich harvest of raptorial birds, and where he assured me that the 

 Imperial and Booted Eagles bred in considerable numbers. 

 During the few days that we remained at Madrid I paid several 

 more visits to the Casa de Campo, and found the Blue Magpies 

 busily employed in their domestic duties. The nests are placed 

 indiscriminately high and low, often within reach from the 

 ground, and sometimes at the top of a lofty poplar, though I 

 think the olive, the ilex, and the acacia are perhaps the most 

 favoured trees. The nest varies a good deal in material and 

 form, but is for the most part constructed of green moss and 

 hairs on the inside, with a strong outwork of twigs and lichens, 

 in some instances being very hard to distinguish amongst the 

 moss-covered bi-auches of the ilex and wild olives. The average 

 complement of eggs, I should say, is six, though I have several 

 times met with seven, and once or twice found five hard sat 

 upon. As among the large number of eggs of this species which 

 I have obtained there are a good many varieties, I take this 

 opportunity of presenting the readers of ' The Ibis^ with repre- 

 sentations of a series sufficient to show what the most extreme 

 of them are like (Plate X. figs. 3-8). The birds are very bold 

 and noisy when they have young, but before they have hatched 

 generally slip quietly away, and remain concealed, occasion- 

 ally uttering a low eluding note. In most cases, where one 



