1880.] OF THE FLAMINGO IN SPAIN. 447 



short distance from that village, but subsists principally by the sale 

 of wild fowl killed by himself and his sons in the Marisma — that is, 

 the great alluvial plains of the Guadalquivir. These plains, roughly 

 speaking, may be said to extend on the left bank of the main river 

 almost from Seville to San Lucar de Barrameda, and on the right bank 

 from La Puebla to the northern edge of the Goto de Doiiana, and con- 

 stitute a wild district of sand hills overgrown in some places with pines 

 and cork-trees, and almost everywhere clothed with a dense growth of 

 cistus, rosemary, lentiscus, brambles, myrtle, and other shrubs. This 

 district belongs to the ducal family of Medina Sidonia, and is rented 

 and preserved after a fashion by an association of gentlemen for 

 shooting-purposes. I am well aware that in using the word marisma 

 as applying to the whole of the open plains below Seville I am not 

 strictly correct, for the natives apply the term principally, if not 

 exclusively, to the uncultivated parts of the said plains ; and a vast 

 portion of them is cultivated, and produces splendid crops of wheat, 

 barley, beans, and other cereals. It is, however, with the south- 

 western portion of these great mud-flats (for they are really little 

 more) that we have to deal in treating of the objects on the table ; 

 but before detailing any particulars concerning them, I may per- 

 haps be allowed to relate a few facts touching upon my own personal 

 acquaintance with these localities and the Flamingos. 



The first time I ever met with this bird in a state of freedom was in 

 August 1856, when ascending the Guadalquivir by steamer from San 

 Lucar to Seville. The river was very low, and the weather very hot. 

 An English stoker forward in the ship cried out, " Look at these 

 here Swans " ! and there, not fifty yards off, on our port bow, were 

 eight Flamingos, apparently swimming, possibly wading, and cer- 

 tainly looking much like Swans to the eye of the unitiated ; however, 

 they rose from the water, and, spreading their wings, almost took 

 away the breath of the astonished Briton. I tried to elicit some par- 

 ticulars concerning the nesting of these birds from the captain and 

 the steward of the steamer ; but my conversational acquaintance with 

 Spanish was very limited, and the heat was too great for conversation, 

 so that my inquiries were only met by another, the usual 

 " Quien sabe ?" On making further inquiries in Seville, I could only 

 learn that every one was aware of the existence of Flamingos in the 

 Marisma, but no one seemed to know any thing of their breeding 

 or ever having bred there. I was again at Seville in 1864, and 

 though I was on this occasion informed that great numbers of 

 Flamingos did occasionally breed in the Marisma, I could find no 

 one who professed to have ever seen their nests, eggs, or young. It was 

 not till 1869, when, in the company of my friend Colonel Howard 

 Irby and the Manuel aforesaid, I made some bird-collecting expe- 

 ditions in the neighbourhood of Seville, that I heard from the latter 

 the particulars recorded by Mr. Howard Saunders in the ' Ibis.' 



As Mr. Saunders there mentions, I remained at Seville till well 

 on into the month of June 1869, principally in the hope that the 

 Flamingos might remain and lay in the Marisma ; but in this hope 

 1 was disappointed ; and I quite agree in the opinion of Mr. Saunders, 



