The Goto Donana 



41 



— there pours into Andalucia an inrush of African and sul)- 

 tropical bird-forms. The sunlit woodhmd gleams with brilliant 

 rollers and golden orioles, while bee-eaters, rivalling the rainbow 

 in gorgeous hues, poise and dart in the sunshine, and their harsh 

 " chack, chack," resounds on every side. Woodchats, spotted 

 cuckoos, hoopoes, and russet nightjars appear ; lovely wheatears 

 in cream and black adorn the palm-clad plain. With them comes 

 the deluge— no epitomised summary is possible when, within brief 

 limits, the whole feathered population of southern Europe is 

 metamorphosed. The winter half has gone north ; its place is 

 filled by the tropical 

 inrush aforesaid. 

 AVarblers and waders, 

 larks, finclies, and 

 fly - catchers, herons, 

 ibis, ducks, gulls, and 

 terns— all orders and 

 genera pour in pro- 

 miscuously, defying 

 cursory analysis. 



A single class only 

 will here be specific- 

 ally mentioned, and 

 that because it throws 

 light on climatic con- 

 ditions. Anion o- these 

 vernal arrivals come certain raptores in countless numbers— all 

 those which are dependent on reptile and insect food. For even 

 in sunny Andalucia the larger reptiles and insects hibernate ; 

 hence their persecutors (including various eagles, buzzards, and 

 harriers, with kites and kestrels in thousands) are driven to seek 

 winter- quarters in Africa. 



Another phenomenon deserves note. Weeks, nay months, 

 after this great vernal upturn in l>ird-life has completed its 

 revolution, and when the newcomers liave already half finished 

 the duties of incubation, then in May suddenly occurs an utterly 

 belated little migration quite disconnected from all the rest. This 

 is the passage, or rather through -transit, of those far- flying 

 cosmopolites of space that make the whole world their home. 

 They have been wintering in South Africa and Madagascar, in 



GREAT SPOTTED CUCKOO {O.rylojmus (jlamlarlus) 



