CHANGES IN THE VICINITY OF THE ROCK. 31 



Since the preceding was written, alas ! more than twenty years 

 ago, the writer has on several occasions in winter and spring 

 visited his old haunts, the last expedition being made in com- 

 pany with Major Willoughby Verner, Rifle Brigade, who was 

 quartered at Gibraltar from 1874 to 1881, and who has since 

 made frequent visits. To him I owe many records of his 

 practical observations, as well as to Mr. Meade-Waldo for some 

 notes made by him during a visit to Tangier in the spring of 

 1892. 



Captain Savile Reid, late Royal Engineers, contributed a 

 paper to ' The Ibis,' 1885, " Winter Notes from Morocco " ; 

 while Mr. Abel Chapman wrote in ' The Ibis,' 1884, " Rough 

 Notes on Spanish Ornithology," and in many of his Chapters 

 of his ' Wild Spain ' he treats of Andalucian birds. 



" Aves de Espana/' by Don Jose Arevalo y Baca, vol. xi. 

 ' Memorias de la Real Academia de Ciencias ' (Madrid, 1887), 

 contains some information on Andalucian birds, and all given on 

 personal observation is no doubt bond fide, but unfortunately he 

 often quotes one upon whom we cannot rely. 



There is now, in 1894, little change in the country near 

 Gibraltar, except in the dress of the peasantry, who have dis- 

 carded most of their picturesque provincial costume, even the old 

 sombrero is rarely seen, and replaced by the felt hat of the 

 London rough ; while the " fair " sex have left off the grace- 

 giving mantilla and even in wild out-of-the-way places adopted 

 caricatures of modern fashions. 



There seems, if possible, more poverty, and in the winter of 

 1893-94 there was mucha hamlre and actual deaths from want ; 

 and had not the early spring of 1894 been exceptionally wet, 

 there would have been a serious famine. 



Among changes in the immediate vicinity of the Rock, a 

 serious one for the Garrison is that the right of shooting over all 

 that part " between the rivers " to as far as and including the 

 Cork-wood has been hired and monopolized by some Gibraltar 



