AFIELD WITH THE BIRDS OF NORTHERN SPAIN 



By ALEXANDER WETMORE, 

 Assistant Secretary, Smithsonian Institution 



Landing in the little seaport of Vigo in northwestern Spain late in 

 the evening of April 23, 1930, I was awakened at dawn the following 

 morning by the cheerful twittering of swallows at my window, the 

 first species of living bird seen on a continent whose life was entirely 

 new to me. Formalities for the entry of my scientific equipment were 

 soon completed, thanks to arrangements made by the American Am- 

 bassador to Spain, the Honorable Irwin B. Laughlin, a Regent of the 

 Smithsonian Institution, and in a few hours I was en route for Madrid, 

 where through the same interested official necessary permits for field 

 collecting were granted. 



As an introduction to what was in store for me, friends at the 

 Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales arranged an excursion into 

 the nearby pine forests of the Sierra de Guadarrama where I spent 

 three days quartered in the Estacion Alpina de Biologia at a little 

 more than 5,000 feet above the sea. In spite of almost continuous 

 snow and rain I found here numerous birds, including among others 

 two species of titmice, the nuthatch, robin, stone-chat, hedge sparrow, 

 and goldcrest, all common birds but of keen interest to one who had 

 not before seen them alive. 



Field work began in earnest on arrival at the little town of Puente 

 de los Fierros at an elevation of 1,800 feet above the sea on the north 

 slope of the Sierra Cantabrica, the great range of rugged mountains 

 that as a continuation of the Pyrenees extends across northern Spain. 

 The town lay in a deep valley that led up to the Pa j ares Pass, with the 

 lower slopes divided by stone fences or lines of brush into pastures 

 and cultivated fields frequently pitched at an angle of 45°, while wind- 

 ing lanes crossing the hill slopes led to higher levels grown with brush 

 and occasional groves of trees. The country people told me that I had 

 brought spring, as the grass became green, fruit trees blossomed, and 

 violets and other spring flowers appeared during the few days that I 

 was there. 



Trees in Spain are as much a crop as grass, and impress one as 

 having a hard and cheerless life. The forests in the Cantabrians are 

 principally of oak and chestnut, growing to a diameter of four to six 

 feet, there being no native pine in this range of mountains. The tops 



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