90 WILD SPAIN. 



quivering heat-haze and the atmospheric fantasies of in- 

 finite space. Amid a chaotic confusion of mirage-effects, 

 we rode out across the level plain — at first across dry mud- 

 flats, partly carpeted with a dwarf scrub of marsh-plants, 

 in places bare and naked, the sun-scorched surface cracked 

 into rhomboids and parallelograms, and honeycombed with 

 deep cattle-tracks made long ago when the mud was 

 moist and plastic. Then through shallow marsh and 

 stagnant waters, gradually deepening. Here from a rushy 

 patch sprang three yeld hinds from almost underfoot, and 

 splashed off through the shallows, their russet coats gleam- 

 ing in the morning sunlight. Gradually the water deep- 

 ened : mHcJia agua, imicJio fmigo .' groaned Felipe ; but this 

 morning we intended to reach the very heart of the 

 marisma : and before ten o'clock were cooking our break- 

 fast on a far-away islet whereon never British foot had trod 

 before, and which was literally covered with Avocets' eggs, 

 and many more. 



Here, while I was busy selecting, numbering, and 

 preparing some of the most tyi^ical clutches, Felipe, whom 

 I had sent to explore another islet close by, came up with 

 five eggs, which he said he thought must be gull's. I saw 

 at a glance he was right, and jumping up, espied among 

 the clamorous crowd of marsh-terns, avocets, stilts, 

 pratincoles, and other birds overhead, a single pair of 

 strangers — small, very long-necked gulls. These I 

 promptly knocked down, and at once recognized as Lanis 

 gclastrs, one of the rarest of the South European gulls, 

 and of whose In-eeding-places and habits comparatively 

 little was known. Only a few days before I had 

 received a letter from Mr. Howard Saunders especially 

 enjoining me to keep a strict look-out for " the beautiful 

 pink-breasted. Slender-billed Gull " ; we therefore at once 

 commenced a careful investigation of all the islands in sight, 

 never dreaming but that our two gulls and the five 

 eggs were duly related to each other. It was therefore 

 with no small surprise that shortly afterwards I found 

 another gull's nest containing two very different eggs 

 (white groand, spotted with black and brown like those 



