The Marismas of Guadalquivir 97 



amazed even accustomed eyes. At intervals as we advanced 

 across mud-flats clad in low growth of rush and samphire, rose 

 for a mile across our front such crowds of wioreon and teal that 

 the landscape ahead appeared a quivering horizon of wings that 

 shimmered like a heat-haze. 



Crouching behind a low breastwork, before me lay a five-acre 

 pool which no amount of firing ever kept quite clear of swimming 

 forms, so fast did thirsty duck, teal, and geese keep dropping in, 

 since behind for twenty leagues stretched waterless plain. 



Merely to make a bag under such conditions means taking 

 every chance, firing away till barrels grow too hot to hold. Here, 

 however, that nature-love that overrides even a fowler's keenness 

 stepped in. With half the wildfowl of Europe flashing, wheeling. 



and alighting within view — many, one fondly imagined, likely to 

 be of supreme interest — ^the writer cannot personally go on taking- 

 single mallards, teal, or wigeon, one after another in superb but 

 almost monotonous rapidity. For the moment, in fact, the 

 naturalist supplants the gunner. True, this may be sacrificing 

 the mutton to the shadow, and this afternoon no special prize 

 rewarded self-denial in letting pass many a tempting chance. 



For gratifying indeed to fowler's pride it is to pull down in 

 fcilling heap the smart pintails and brilliant shovelers, to bring 

 ofi:' a right-and-left at geese, though, it may be, one had first 

 to let a cloud of wigeon pass the silent muzzle. Such is 

 individual taste, nor will the memory of that afternoon ever fade, 

 although my score, when at 3.30 p.m. I was recalled, only totalled 

 up to seventy-four ducks and four greylag geese. 



The recall was imperative, and I obeyed, though not without 

 hesitation and doubt. Could earth provide a better place ? 



H 



