448 LORD LILFORD ON THE BREEDING [JuilC 1, 



if I quite rightly understand it, that no Flamingos had nested 

 within thirty miles of Seville for several years previous to 1H70. 



In the year 1872 I again visited Seville, remaining therefrom the 

 middle of February till the 1st of May, on which day we started by 

 steamer for San Lucar de Barrameda for a fortnight's exploration 

 of the Goto de Donana. As soon as we left the cultivated parts of 

 the great plain, we observed Flamingos in thousands standing in long 

 lines in the lucios ^ of the Isla Mayor '^, as well as on the left bank 

 of the main river as we approached San Lucar. On arrival at this 

 town, my first inquiry was if the Flamingos were nesting ; and the 

 general answer I met with was, " No, there is not water enough, and 

 they are leaving the country in hundreds for the south every night^;" 

 you should have been here at this time the year before last (1870), 

 when^ the Isla Mayor was fairly covered with their eggs, and boat- 

 loads of them were brought into the town and sold for a few pence 

 per dozen, and the boys were writing on all the doors and walls with 

 the egg-shells. In vain I inquired about the nests ; no one had 

 either seen or heard of one ; and many of my informants, who had 

 gathered baskets full of the eggs, solemnly declared that the 

 Flamingos never did make nests, and left their eggs to be hatched 

 by the heat of the sun. We remained at the shooting-lodges of the 

 Goto de Doiiana till May 16th ; and almost every night large numbers 

 of Flamingos pa^^sed over in a south-westerly direction at no very 

 great height from the ground, with a hoarse clamour something like 

 the music of a flock of Grey-Lag Geese. On ascending the river 

 about the 1 7th of May, on our return to Seville, we saw, compara- 

 tively speaking, very few Flamingos, not more, I should say, than 

 two hundred at the outside ; but the mirage was so strong and so 

 deceitful, that it is possible that many escaped our notice. 



Two eggs were sent to me by one of the keepers of the Goto iu 

 the autumn of 187'2 ; but he simply said that he had picked them up 

 in the Marisma, and that they were offensively rotten, possibly eggs 

 of 1870. I was in Seville again with my )'acht in February and 

 March 1879 ; but though I heard that the Flamingos were in the 

 Isla Mayor in great numbers, we did not see many on our Bustard- 

 shooting expeditions in the Isla Menor. 



I left earnest entreaties for early information on the subject of 

 their remaining to lay, with the following meagre results. 



' " Luoio." The only translation of this subatautive which I can find in the 

 best Spanish dictionary is Common Pike, Es.ox lucius, L. ; but it is used in the 

 Marisma of the Guadalquivir as a name for the great sheets of water caused by 

 the autumnal rains, some of which sheets are seldom entirely dried up, even iu 

 the fiercest summer heats. The word is in all probability derived from the 

 verb "Lueir," to shine or glitter; e. g., "Todo no es oro que reluce " ("all is 

 not gold that glitters "). 



" Isla Mayor and Menor. Two large islands formed by branches of the 

 Guadalquivir, about halfway, roughly speaking, from Seville to San Lucar de 

 Barrameda by river. 



^ Mr. Howard Saunders maintains that I must be mistaken as to the date 

 here mentioned, and that the lajing of the Flamingos as related to me must 

 have taken place in 1671, and not, as I was informed, in 1870. This is not a 

 very material point, and I only tell the story as told to me. 



