iio Unexplored Spain 



past the seductive decoys. At recurring moments during the 

 next three or four hours {with bhmk intervals between) I 

 enjoyed to the full this most delightful form of wildfowling, so 

 totally different in practice to all others. 



Such is the speed of lighting fowl, such their keenness of 

 vision and instant perception of danger, that but a momentary 

 point of time — say the eighth of a second — is available fully 

 to exploit each chance. Should the gunner rise too quick, the 

 ducks are beyond the most effective range ; yet within a space 

 not to be measured by figures or words, they will have detected 

 the fraud, and in a flash have scattered, shooting vertically 

 upwards like a bunch of sky-rockets. 



Two features in the life-history of the duck-kind become 

 apparent. The first points to the probability that adults pair 

 for life, and that the mated couples keep together all winter even 

 when forming component units in a crowd. For when an adult 

 female is shot from the midst of a pack, the male will almost 

 invariably accompany her in her fall to the very surface of the 

 water, and will afterwards circle around, piping disconsolately, 

 and even return again and again in search of his lost partner. 

 This applies chiefly to wigeon, but we have frequently observed 

 the same trait in pintail and occasionally in other species. It is 

 only the drakes that display this constancy ; a bereaved female 

 continues her flight unheeding. 



The feature is most conspicuous when awaiting ducks at their 

 feeding-grounds {comederos), but it also occurs when shooting on 

 their llight-lines {correde7'Os) between distant points. 



The second singular habit is the custom, particularly among 

 wio-eon, to form what are termed in Spanish maganonas — 

 little oToups of four to a dozen birds consisting of a single female 

 w^ith a bevy of males in attendance, flying aimlessly hither 

 and thither in a compact mass, the drakes constantly calling 

 and the one female twisting and turning in all directions as 

 though to avoid their attentions. The maganonas appear blind 

 to all sense of danger, and will pass within easy range even 

 though a gunner be fully exposed. Not only this, but a first 

 shot may easily account for half-a-dozen, and should the hen be 

 among the fallen, the survivors will come round again and again 

 in search of her. We have known whole maganonas to be 

 secured within a few minutes. 



