70 Mr. A. Chapman's Rough Notes 



Ronda^ steadily winging their way high over those lofty 

 peaks. 



Towards the end of May the Great Bustards moult heavily, 

 losing nearly all their quills together. They are then unable 

 to fly, and to this circumstance is probably owing the tradi- 

 tional idea of their having formerly been coursed with grey- 

 hounds. Except at this season they could no more be killed 

 in that way than could a Wild Goose. A magnificent old 

 male was brought into Jerez^ except for his wings, in beau- 

 tiful plumage, and with the gorgeous chestnut ruff in perfect 

 order. 



There are not many other birds on these monotonous corn- 

 lands. A few Quails and Little Bustards, the usual hosts of 

 Larks and Buntings, and now and then a Montagues Harrier, 

 mostly the handsome males^, looking almost white in the 

 sunshine, are all one sees. I should not, however, omit the 

 Storks, a pair of which frequent each " cortijo/'' where the 

 female is then sitting on her eggs on the straw-thatched 

 roof. 



My next expedition was to the '' marismas " of the Gua- 

 dalquivir, lying to the westward of Jerez. We have in 

 English no equivalent to the Spanish '' marisma -j" and the 

 region is so peculiar, both physically and ornithologically, as 

 to require a short description. If the reader will look at a 

 map of Spain there will be noticed a large tract on the lower 

 Guadalquivir totally void of names of villages &c. From 

 Lebrija on the east to Almonte on the west, and from the 

 Atlantic almost up to Seville itself, the map is vacant ; this 

 huge district is, in fact, a wilderness, and in winter the 

 greater part of it is a dismal waste of water. For league 

 after league, as one advances into its forbidding desolation, 

 the eye rests on nothing but water — water meeting the sky 

 all round the horizon. The Guadalquivir intersects the 

 marisma, its triple channel divided from the adjacent waters 

 by low mudbanks. The water of the marisma is fresh, or 

 nearly so, quite drinkable, and has a varying depth of 



* Possibly some of these were C. cijaneus or C. pallidus, but thowSe 

 obtained iverw all ot the above-mentioued species. 



