CHAPTER X 

 WILD-GEESE IN SPAIN 



THEIR SPECIES, HAUNTS, AND HABITS 



To Spain, as to other lands that remain unaltered and " unim- 

 proved," resort the greylag geese in thousands to pass the winter. 



In our marismas of the Guadalquivir they appear during 

 the last days of September, but it is a month later ere their 

 full numbers are made up, and from that date until the end 

 of February their defiant multitudes and the splendid diffi- 

 culties of their pursuit aftbrd a unique form and degree of wild 

 sport perhaps unknown outside of Spain. 



Ride through the marisma in November ; it is mostly dry, 

 and autumn rains have merely refreshed the sun-baked alluvia and 

 formed sporadic shallows, or lucios as they are here termed. That 

 lucio straight ahead is a mile across, yet it is literally tessellated 

 with a sonorous crowd. With binoculars one distinguishes 

 similar scenes beyond ; the intervening space — and indeed the 

 whole marisma — is crowded with geese as thickly as it is on 

 our immediate front. To right and left rise fresh armies hitherto 

 concealed among the armajo, till the very earth seems in process 

 of upheaval, while the air resounds with a volume of voices — 

 ofabblinsfs, croaks, and shrill bi-tones minsjled wdth the rumble of 

 beatino^ wino;s. 



Amid the islands of the Norwegian Skaargaard one can see 

 oreese in bulk, but there their numbers are distributed over a 

 thousand miles of coast. Here we have them all — or a large 

 proportion — concentrated in what is by comparison but a narrow 

 space. 



In their life-habits these geese are strictly diurnal," that is, 

 they feed by day — chiefly in the early morning and again towards 

 afternoon, with a mid-day interval of rest. The night they spend 



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