20 INTRODUCTION. 



results from not being able to find birds that have fallen. Snipe 

 in Andalucia are very seldom seen together in lots or wisps, 

 though occasionally in very wet stormy weather small wisps 

 appear. The best localities which I have visited in Andalucia 

 are the marshes near the edges of the Marisma, or delta of the 

 Guadalquivir, below Seville, especially just beyond Coria del 

 Rio, and near the Goto del Rey and the Goto Dofiana ; one spot 

 near the Palacio of the former place, las Carnicerias, is excellent. 

 At Casa Vieja, or, more properly speaking, Casas Viejas, some 

 forty miles from Gibraltar, is very good ground, particularly in 

 the first part of the season ; there are also good marshes near 

 Vejer. Late in the season, near Taivilla and Tapatanilla, on the 

 road from Tarifa to Vejer, at times Snipe are also to be found 

 very plentifully, but are very wild, and it is impossible to make 

 a large bag as there is no cover. 



The wildfowl- or duck-shooting in dry seasons is very fair 

 in the early part of the winter, before the lagoons and rivers 

 are filled up by the rains, there being then very few wet spots, 

 and the birds crowd together in the small pools Avhich remain 

 between the high banks of the river-beds, and can be easily 

 approached ; but later on, when these streams are brimful or, 

 rather, overflow their banks, and when the lagunas are sheets 

 of water without rushes or cover of any sort at the edges, it 

 is almost impossible to shoot ducks by day except by making 

 " hides " with sticks and stones, and sending some one round 

 and trying to have them driven over you. At flight sometimes 

 very fair sport is to be had for one or two nights ; but after that 

 the fowl know the place, and either come very late or avoid it 

 altogether. For flight-shooting a good retriever is absolutely 

 necessary ; for it is, in the dark, impossible to find the spoil ; 

 and if left till morning, the Marsh-Harriers are at them by break 

 of day, leaving nothing but bones and feathers. To my mind 

 there is very great charm in flight-shooting, and a naturalist 

 while waiting will see and hear much that is pleasant and perhaps 



