DRESSER: THREE WEEKS ON THE GUADALQUIVIR. 31 



pine tree at an altitude of about thirty feet, and it contained two 

 young birds half feathered, and the remains of a couple of rabbits ; 

 and below the nest, on the ground, were remains enough of rabbits 

 to show that the Eagles had made sad havoc amongst the bunnies. 

 I wished to leave the young birds, but Manuel insisted on killing 

 them, so I took them along with us. After halting to rest the 

 horses and take lunch, we again passed through some sand-hills, and, 

 reaching a grass-covered tract, we kept along it for some distance, 

 making for a laguna, where I was told we should find many birds 

 breeding, and on which there was a boat that we could make use of. 

 On this grassy tract were a few cork trees here and there, and from 

 one of these we started a Little Owl, and Ave also saw a couple of 

 Green Woodpeckers {Gecinu sharpii). At about four o'clock Ave 

 reached the lagoon, and wading across the narrowest portion of it, 

 we camped close to the ruins of a rough hut, which had been built 

 to house sportsmen who come here to shoot Duck, but had been 

 allowed to fall into decay. The lagoon extended some distance, and 

 was fringed by marsh and high reeds, and we could see on an island 

 in the middle some Purple Herons, but, oddly enough, we did not 

 see any of the Egrets or Buff-backed Herons, which I fully expected 

 to find here. After we had unloaded and picketed our horses, we 

 went to hunt for the boat, but could not find it, so we tried to wade 

 to the island, but the water was too deep, and the aquatic herbage 

 was so dense that it was unsafe to attempt to swim to it, or I would 

 have done so. We, therefore, waded about in the marsh, where we 

 took a Montagu's Harrier's {Circus cineracejis) nest with three eggs, 

 and saw several Bitterns, but found no nest. At nine we made up 

 a fire, and whilst one of the men cooked the food, I and the other 

 man skinned the two young Eagles, and we then turned in, making 

 a bed of a lot of half-dried bracken. Besides the birds above 

 enumerated, we saw to-day the following species, viz., Falco cenchris, 

 Afias angnsiirostris, Sterna mimiia, Hydrochelidon hybrida^ Recur- 

 virosira avocetta, Athene noctua. Circus ceruginosus^ Anas boschas, 

 Galerita cristata, Gecinus sharpii, Fidica atra, Vanellus vulgaris, 

 Merops apiaster, OEdicnemus scolopax, and numbers of Flamingoes 

 and Stilts. 



During the night I was woke by a shepherd's dog, who came to 

 see who was there, so there were evidently shepherds about, and at 

 about six in the morning (17th May) we were visited by a shepherd 

 and his boy and a gamekeeper, who told us that the boat had been 

 taken away, and that we could not get on to the lake ; so we 

 decided to ride on further. The men breakfasted off a duck they 

 had shot, and I contented myself with a couple of biscuits, a piece 



Jan. 1890. 



