dresser: three weeks on the GUADALQUIVIR. 29 



taining fourteen eggs. The nest was placed under the bush, well 

 hidden, and was constructed of small sticks and twigs and coarse 

 grass, and well lined with down, and the entrance was made, not 

 close to the bush, but a short distance away, through a small covered 

 way amongst the long grass. We also procured another nest of the 

 Marbled Duck with nine eggs, and in this nest there was scarcely 

 any down. Besides these we took three Avocet's {Recurvirostra 

 avocetta) eggs, several Stilts and Whiskered Terns, and two clutches 

 of Redshank's {Totanus calidris). Early in the afternoon we returned 

 to our old quarters, where we found the keeper, who had brought 

 the necessary permission, and we at once proceeded to make 

 arrangements for an early start in the morning, and as the Colonel 

 wanted to attend to some business at Seville, it was finally arranged 

 that I should take a three days' trip inland, taking one of our men 

 with me, and that during that time he should go to Seville. We there- 

 fore steamed down to San Lucar, where we went ashore and 

 purchased some corn and necessaries for the trip, and arranged for 

 two horses to meet us early the following morning, and we then 

 returned back, and turned in. On the next day (i6th May) we were 

 up at five, and after getting breakfast, I and one of our men were 

 put ashore at the place where we had arranged for the two horses to 

 meet us, and Barclay started for Seville. My baggage was very small, 

 consisting of our two baskets, one filled with cotton-wool to pack the 

 eggs we expected to procure, a plaid, half a small box of biscuits, a 

 pound of chocolate, and a flask of whisky. I did not trouble to 

 take any change of raiment, beyond a spare pair of socks, as the 

 weather looked settled, and I am too old a campaigner to trouble 

 about wet clothes ; and the biscuits and chocolate, together with raw 

 eggs beaten up in the cup of my flask, and flavoured with a little 

 whisky, would be all I should need for more than a three days' trip, 

 but for the men we had some bread, cheese, cold meat, sausages of 

 a red colour, which I could not have touched to save my life as they 

 were redolent with garlic, and a small pot in which they could cook 

 any game they shot, as here such a thing as a close time seems to be 

 unknown. Before the launch left, however, a girl, one of the 

 keeper's daughters, brought us a few eggs, taken on the previous day, 

 viz. : — one clutch Kite {Afilvus ictinus), two Black Kite, two Booted 

 Eagle, and one of three eggs of the Blackbird ( Tardus merula). As 

 might be expected the horses did not arrive at the time appointed, so 

 I left the man to watch the baggage, and took a stroll to a neigh- 

 bouring grove, where, during the hour we had to wait, I observed 

 the following birds, viz: — Turtle Dove, Cuckoo {Cuculus canorus). 

 Great Spotted Cuckoo, Golden Oriole {Oriolus galbula), Spotted 



Jan. 1890. 



