410 WILD SPAIN. 



than it is dark, and the nocturnal concert of frogs and owls 

 has commenced ; a clear, strangely deceptive darkness, for 

 on the ground one cannot see to shoot a rabbit or a low- 

 flying woodcock, yet overhead it is still light, and day is 

 prolonged for half an hour more. The sunset effects on 

 the western skies are gorgeous displays of rich colour, and 

 even in the east there is a rosy reflection which rapidly 

 fades awa}'. 



But there is none of that pleasant half-light we enjoy in 

 our northern clime. The transition from day to night is 

 startlingly sudden, twilight lasting only a few minutes. 

 The feathered race is well aware of this and prepare for 

 the event by going to roost a full half-hour l)efore sun- 

 down. One of the first signs of approaching night is the 

 flight of the ravens. Perhaps one has not realized the fact 

 that the day is far spent, and is reminded of it by their dark 

 files slowly crossing the heavens towards their roosting- 

 places while it is yet broad daylight. The same habit is 

 observable with the smaller birds. All day long they have 

 been abundant enough ; but during the last half-hour of 

 daylight not one is to be seen, and when their retreat is 

 eventually found they are buried, some in the pine-tops, 

 others in thickets of myrtle or lentiscus-scrub — fast asleep 

 in daylight. Hence these half-hours at dusk produced but 

 little. One evening, while wandering among the pines, a 

 buzzard dipped down from a lower branch and silently sped 

 away till a shot in the wing brought him down. This bird 

 proved to be one of the remarkably handsome pale varieties 

 of Butco vulgaris, the whole plumage of a warm cream- 

 colour, slightly mottled and splashed above with dark 

 brown ; irides dark and claws white. My brothers (H. 

 and A.) obtained buzzards in somewhat similar plumage in 

 Germany (adults, shot at the nest) in the spring of 1878, 

 but I have not otherwise met with the variety in Spain, the 

 Spanish type being generally dark. Waiting on the line 

 of the raven's flight, I dropped a pair of these birds : and 

 shortly afterwards observed two very large tawny-coloured 

 eagles flap heavily into a pine, but failed to approach 

 within shot, or anything like it. 



