108 WILD SPAIN. 



Some years afterwards the writer killed a magnificent male 

 lynx, one of the largest and most beautifully marked we 

 have ever seen, at this mancha — probably the same beast. 



These scrub-clad plains abounded with tall grey foxes 

 (Vnljx'S melauociaster) and mongoose {Herpestes u-iddring- 

 toiii), with genets, badgers, and wild-cats, of all of which 

 we shot specimens. Three wild-cats we bagged by moon- 

 light, from screens placed to command an open glade where 

 rabbits are wont to pursue nocturnal gambols. "Waiting 

 in ambush beneath the star-strewn heavens, in the silent 

 brilliance of the southern night, no sound save the churring 

 of nightjars, or the whistle of stone- curlew, broke the 

 stillness : bats and small owls flicker in uncertain flight 

 against the dark sky, and across the glade rabbits glide 

 like phantoms : presently a larger shadow announces their 

 deadly enemy, the Gato monies. Two of these wild-cats were 

 males, large and powerful brutes, weighing Og- and 10^ lbs. 

 respectively, and tinged with warm chestnut colours 

 beneath. The big lynx we could not weigh, being beyond 

 the limit of the spring-balance. He probably reached 

 near half a hundredweight. But we must return to our 

 flamingoes. 



During the month of April, as already mentioned, all 

 efforts to discover their breeding-places proved futile. It 

 was clearly too early in the season, and the writer now lost 

 nearly a week through a smart attack of ague, brought 

 on by constant splashing about in comparatively cold water 

 with a fierce sun always beating down on one's head. In 

 May, however, we had better luck. Further to the east- 

 ward flamingoes had always been most numerous, and once 

 or twice we observed signs, earl}^ in May, that looked like 

 the first rude beginnings of architecture. We have already 

 described the archipelago of islets that lay far towards the 

 eastern shore, and on which we had found the rare gulls, 

 and such a variety of waders and other aquatic birds 

 breeding (p. 93), together with the immense numbers of 

 flamingoes that lined the horizon. "We must now return 

 to those bird-islets, to the scene where we broke off at the 

 end of Ciiapter YII. on the afternoon of the 9th of May. 



