CHAPTEE XXXIII 



ON SMALL-GAME SHOOTING IN SPAIN 



Hardly will one enter a village posada or a peasant's lonely 

 cot without observing one inevitable sign. Among the simple 

 adornments of the whitewashed wall and as an integral item 

 thereof hanojs a caoed redleo-. And from the rafters above will 

 be slung an antediluvian fowling-piece, probably a converted 

 " flinter," bearing upon its rusty single barrel some such 

 inscription— inset in gold characters — as, "Antequera, 1843." 

 These two articles, along with a cork-stoppered powder-horn and 

 battered leathern shot-belt, constitute the stock-in-trade and most 

 cherished treasures of our rustic friend, the Spanish cazador. 

 Possibly he also possesses a pachon. or heavily built native 

 pointer ; but the dog is chiefly used to find ground-game or 

 quail, since the redleg, ever alert and swift of foot, defies all 

 pottering pursuit. Hence the reclamo, or call- bird, is almost 

 universally preferred for that purpose. 



Red-legged partridges abound throughout the length and 

 breadth of wilder Spain — not, as at home, on the open corn-lands, 

 but amidst the interminable scrub and brushwood of the hills and 

 dales, on the moory wastes, and palmetto-clad prairie. On the 

 latter hares, quail, and lesser bustard vary the game. 



Thither have ever resorted sportsmen of every degree — the 

 lord of the land and the peasant, the farmer, the Padre Cura of 

 the parish, or the local medico — all free to shoot, and each carrying 

 the traitor reclamo in its narrow cage. The central idea is, of 

 course, that the reclamo, by its siren song, shall call up to the 

 gun any partridge within hearing, when its owner, concealed in 

 the bush hard by, has every opportunity of potting the unconscious 

 game as it runs towards the decoy — two at a shot preferred, or 

 more if possible. 'Twere unjust to reproach the peasant-gunner 

 for the deed; flying shots with his old "flinter" would merely 



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