398 



"WILD SPAIN. 



course ; and, as too often happens in our tidal waters at 

 home, to snatch success from one's grasp in the very 

 moment of its reaHzation. 



No; here we had smooth shallow water, uniform in depth, 

 practically stagnant, and with a firm level bed of mud. 

 And everywhere on its surface, and in the clear atmo- 

 sphere above, floated or flew those wild and graceful forms 

 so dear to a fowler's eye — the duck-tribe in endless variety. 

 Half a mile away, the opposite shores of the sound, the 

 Lucio de los Caballeros, were dark with multitudes of 



duck : fresh files kept streaming in to alight among their 

 fellows, and at intervals the roar of wings, as some bird of 

 prey put their battalions in motion, resounded like the 

 rumble of thunder. Close overhead hovered graceful Little 

 Gulls {Larus minutus), adults whose dark under- wing con- 

 trasted with the snowy breast, others in the marbled 

 plumage of immaturity. As the punt shot forward, hidden 

 amidst islanded clumps of rush and sedge, we passed, 

 almost within arm's-length, the weird-looking grebes and 

 singular long-legged stilts in every posture of repose and 



