Spring-time in the Marismas 383 



We are not so foolish as attempt to say ; but we do venture 

 to express the opinion that in years when even wildest Spain 

 refuses asylum to wild creatures such as these, the result to them 

 can only represent an overwhelming catastrophe. For there lies 

 before them no alternative refuge ; their races must perish by 

 wholesale. 



At those rare points where permanent waters remained one 

 might look for great concentrations of bird-life, yet such was not 

 the case. As indicated, the bulk had foreseen the event and 

 abandoned this country. 



One phenomenon struck us as inexplicable. Of the birds 

 that did remain none displayed the slightest symptom of yielding 

 to the vernal impulse, of pairing, or of desiring to nest. 



Flamingoes, for example (what few there were), continued 

 massed in solid herds up to mid-May. A band of 300 that we 

 examined closely on the 12tli at the Cano de la Junquera 

 (though fully 90 per cent were adults in perfect pink feather) 

 contained not a single paired couple. Hard by the flamingoes 

 some forty or fifty spoonbills were feeding. These, last year, 

 nested at this spot, building upon or among the low samphire- 

 scrub — a dangerously open situation for such big and conspicuous 

 birds. This spring, though many remained in the marisma, not 

 a spoonbill nested in the district at all. Flamingoes, by the way, 

 had exhibited extreme restlessness throughout the spring. On 

 February 22, for example, while steaming up the Straits of 

 Gibraltar, we detected them in quite incredible numbers but at an 

 altitude almost l)eyond the range even of prism-glasses — it was a 

 dim similitude to drifting cirri that first caught our eye. So 

 vast was their aerial elevation that it was only after prolonged 

 examination we at length recognised those revolving grey specks 

 as being birds at all ; presently a nearer band, directly overhead, 

 revealed their characteristic identity. The bulk of these held a 

 .southerly tendency, towards Africa ; others drifted undecided ; 

 while several bands, halting between two opinions, when lost to 

 sight were wheeling beyond the Spanish hills. 



Ducks also in mid-May serried the skies in utterly anachronous 

 skeins — reminiscent of winter. These were largely marbled ducks, 

 all unpaired ; but there were also very large aggregations of 

 mallards. One such pack on May 10 certainly counted 500 — a 

 number we never remember to have seen massed toorether in 



