268 



Unexplored Spain 



when the mud was moist and phistic ; then through shallow 

 marsh and stagnant waters gradually deepening. Here from a 

 patch of rush hard by sprang three hinds with their fawns and 

 splashed away through the shallows, their russet pelts gleaming 

 in the early sunlight. Gradually the water deepened ; " mucha 

 agua, mucho fango ! " groaned our companion, Felipe ; hut this 

 morning we meant to reach the very heart of the marisma, and 

 before ten o'clock were cooking our breakfast on a far-away islet 

 whereon never British foot had trod before, and which was 



STILTS DISTURBED AT THEIR NESTING-PLACE 



literally strewn with avocets' eggs, while nests of stilts, redshanks, 

 pratincoles, and many more lay scattered around. 



During this day we discovered two nests of the slender-billed 

 gull [Larus gelastes), not previously known to breed in Spain ; 

 also, we then believed, those of the Mediterranean black-headed 

 gull (L. rtielanocephalus), though the latter were afterwards as- 

 cribed by oological experts (perhaps correctly) to the gull-billed 

 tern (Sterna anglica), a species whose eggs we also found by 

 the dozen. 



The immense ao-oTeoatioiis of Hamino^oes which, in wet seasons, 

 throncr the middle marismas can scarce be described. Our bird- 

 islets lay so remote from the low -lying shores that no land 

 whatever was in sio-ht : but the desolate horizon that surrounded 

 them was adorned by an almost unbroken line of pink and white 



