40 Unexplored Spain 



may be found (some of them) scattered through these chapters. 

 But tlie present is not the jjlace for detail. 



The land-lnrds in winter you hardly see, for they " take 

 cover." 



Diametrically ditierent — in cause and effect — is the case of 

 wildfowl. These, by the essence of their natures and by their 

 economic necessities, are always conspicuous, for they inhabit 

 solely the open spaces of earth — the " spaces " that no longer 

 exist at home : shallow^s, wastes, and tidal flats devoid of covert. 

 Wildfowl, for that reason, have long learnt to discard all attempt 

 at concealment, to rely for safety upon their own eyesight and 

 incredible wildness. No illusory idea that security may be 

 sought in covert abuses their keen and receptive instincts. 

 Probably it never did. Nowadays, at any rate, they openly defy 

 the human race with all its brain-begotten devices. There, in 

 " waste places," wildfowl sit or fly — millions of them — conspicuous 

 and audible so far as human sense of sight and sound can reach, 

 and there bid defiance to us all. Much of these wastes are not 

 (in the cant of a hypocritical age) " undeveloped," but rather, as 

 means exist, incapable of development. Such spectacles of wild 

 life as these Andalucian marismas to-day present are probably 

 unsurpassed elsewhere in Europe — or possibly in the world. In 

 foreground, background, and horizon both earth and sky are filled 

 with teeming, living multitudes ; while the shimmering grey 

 monotony of the marisma, tessellated with its grey armies of 

 the Anatidae, is everywhere brightened and adorned by rosy 

 battalions of flamingoes. And out there, far beyond our visible 

 horizon, there wander in that watery wilderness the wild camels, 

 to which we devote a separate chapter. 



Flamingoes ignore the limits of continents, and shift their 

 mobile headquarters between Europe and Africa as the respective 

 rainfall in either happens to suit their requirements. Hence, 

 whether by day or night, the sight or sound of gabbling 

 columns of flamingoes passing through the upper air is a charac- 

 teristic of these lonely regions, irrespective of season. Cranes also 

 in marshalled ranks, and storks, continually pass to and fro. 

 The African coast, of course, lies well within their range of vision 

 from the start. 



Then as winter merges into spring — what time those clanging 

 crowds of wild-geese and myriad north -bound ducks depart 



