NEW QUARTERS 4! 



morning found us ready to start home, with everything 

 packed. 



Just as we were going to load up a boy came to 

 say that he could show us an Engaiias nest, about 

 three miles distant ; this was very annoying, as I had 

 quite made up my mind to leave, disgusted as I was 

 with our bad luck, but Don Ramon and his wife did 

 all they could to persuade me to stay, while at last old 

 Lorenzo, thoroughly homesick and tired of the place 

 as he must have been, struck a tragic attitude and said 

 "Que lastima, Senor" (what a misfortune), to go back 

 having found nothing. Thus he turned the scale, so we 

 set to and unpacked, turning out the remnants of pro- 

 visions, some of which I had dispensed with a too 

 lavish hand the day before. 



An hour and a halfs journey brought us to the 

 place where the nest was situated ; our youthful guide, 

 dressed as were all the peasant boys, in white, trotting 

 along in front of us to show the way. He pulled up 

 near the centre of a flat piece of ground which skirted 

 one of the stony ravines, looked about for a few minutes 

 and then pointed to his feet, where we saw, matching 

 in colour and size the surrounding stones, a Courser's 

 egg. There was not the slightest attempt at any 

 hollowing of the ground, only a small bare space, quite 

 flat, and about six inches in diameter, cleared from 

 among the adjacent stones. Evidently the birds had 

 only just begun to nest now, and there would no 

 doubt be another egg laid to-morrow or the next day, 

 so after photographing the egg in situ and rewarding 

 our guide, we marked the spot and went off in another 

 direction. 



