the Ornithology of Spain. 185 



safely to London, and they are now in the gardens of the 

 Zoological Society. As we were reposing on the summit, we wit- 

 nessed a migration of Honey-Buzzards {Pernis apivorus), con- 

 sisting of several hundred birds. Alpine Swifts [Cypselus melba) 

 were dashing like lightning along the face of the cliff; and a pair 

 of Falcons, apparently Falco peregrinus, had a nest which we 

 were unable to discover. A few Cinereous and Egyptian Vul- 

 tures were also visible ; but we could not find any nests with eggs. 

 Several of the latter had been previously taken for me. A few 

 nests of small birds, amongst them Saxicola leucura, concluded 

 the day^s work ; and on the following I went back by way of 

 Cordova, the market-place of which was quite gay with cages 

 full of Rollers [Coracias garrula) and strings of Bee-eaters 

 [Merops apiaster). The females of the latter had already taken 

 up their quarters in the holes of the banks, ready for laying, and 

 the males were bringing them food ; but there were no eggs as 

 yet. Some females had them almost ready for exclusion. I be- 

 lieve that the female Bee-eater never leaves her hole, unless dis- 

 turbed, from the time she goes in to lay until she has hatched 

 her brood ; and I know that when that has taken place, she is so 

 besmirched with filth as to be almost unable to fly. 



I had not been back in Seville an hour when I was called off 

 to a tentadero, or trial of young bulls for the ring, in that part of 

 the plains watered by branches of the Guadalquivir called the Isla 

 Menor. On our way we took little but some nests oiLanius auri- 

 culaius, Alauda cristata, and, lower down, A.calandra; but after 

 disposing of the bulls, we turned our attention to Bustards {Otis 

 tarda), and in the course of the day discovered four nests — two 

 with two eggs each, one with one, all fresh, and one with three, 

 very hard-set. It would have given an English farmer a fit to 

 see a party of men and dogs working through wheat and barley 

 breast high ; but the only proprietor we saw seemed rather to 

 like it, and assisted us as mu.ch as lay in his power, Manuel, 

 who had lived among Bustards for some forty years, told me that 

 he had twice found nests with four eggs, and once a sitting of 

 five 1 from which he shot the hen bird. The usual number is 

 two or three. Nest, strictly speaking, there is none, merely a 

 scratching in the soil. They are not hard to find, as the bird 



