400 Unexplored Spain 



herself on her back and hold the hawk at bay, striking out right 

 and left, for she has powerful claws and can scratch like a cat. 

 Often the assaihmt is fixirly beaten off; or should the fight end 

 without visible issue, probably the coveted eggs have been hustled 

 overboard in the tussle. Then it amuses to watch the harrier's 

 frantic efforts to recover the sunken prizes from the shallows. 



Great Spotted Cuckoo {Oxyhplius glandarius). — A striking 

 rakish form, this stranger from unknown Africa silently appears 

 in Spain during the closing days of February or early in IMarch. 

 On the fifth evening of the latter month, while rambling in the 



bush on the watch for " some 

 new thing," a hawk-like figure 

 swept by and perched on the 

 outer branches of a thorny 

 acacia. When shot, the bird 

 dropped a yard or so, then 

 clutching a bough with pre- 

 hensile zygodactylic claws, hung 

 suspended with so desperate a 

 hold that it was with difliculty 

 released. Waiting a few minutes, a harsh resonant scream — 

 cheer-oh, thrice repeated — announced the arrival of the male, 

 which fell winged on a patch of bog beyond. Ere we could reach 

 the spot the bird had run back, regained the outer trees, and was 

 climbing a willow-trunk more in the style of parrot than cuckoo. 

 The beak was used for steadying, and so fast did it climb that 

 we had to ascend after it. 



The beak in this species opens far back, giving a very wide 

 gape — colour inside pink, deepening to dark carmine. We sketched 

 and preserved both specimens, see p. 41 and above. 



As a rule this cuckoo disappears in early autumn, but we have 

 an exceptional record of its occurrence in winter. One was shot 

 at San Lucar de Barrameda, December 19, 1909. 



This cuckoo, like all its old-world congeners,^ is parasitic in 

 its domestic menage — that is, it adopts a system of reproduction 

 by proxy — relying, as Canon Tristram long ago put it, on finding 

 a " foundling hospital " for its young. But even the keen intellect 



^ Tlie African bush-cuckoos, or coucals {Centropus), certainly build their own nests ; but 

 they are only related nominally, and the connection is remote. 



