Andalucia and its 



Big Game 63 



following spring in the worn and ragged plumes, it's not poetic, 

 but the fact.^ This is not the place to enumerate all the char- 

 acteristic forms of bird-life, and only one other shall be mentioned, 

 chiefly because the incident occurred the day we drafted this 

 chapter. One hears behind the rustle of strong wings, and there 

 passes overhead in dipping, undulated flight a green woodpecker 

 of the Spanish species, Gecinus sharpci. With a regular thud 



SPANISH GREEN WOODPECKER {Gecintis skarpci) 

 (1) Alighting. (2) Calling. 



he alights on the rough bark of a cork-oak in front, clings in 

 rigid aplomb while surveying the spot for any sign of danger, 

 then projects upwards a snake-like neck and with vertical beak 

 gives forth a series of maniacal shrieks that resound through the 

 silences,-^ By all means watch and study every phase of wild- 



* There are, of course, exceptions, sucli as golden plovers, rufls, dunlin, godwits, knots, 

 that do assume a vernal dress. 



- This, the southernmost form of the green woodpecker, has much the most ringing voice. 

 The closely allied northern form, U. canus, that one hears constantly in Norway, utters hut 

 a sharp monosyllahic note. A second curious fact may here he mentioned : that the 

 great grey shrike, just named, Lanius mcrklionalis, is resident in Spain throughout the year, 

 while the closely allied and almost identical L. excubitor hreeds exclusively in the far north 



