88 



WILD SPAIN. 



purpose their peculiar build specially adapts them, picking 

 up seeds, insects and aquatic plants from the surface.* 



We found many nests of Peewit and Eedshank, those of 

 the latter by far the best concealed, always in some thick 

 clump of grass or samphire. Such familiar notes sound 

 strangely incongruous amid the exotic bird-medley around, 

 and the fact of their remaining to nest so far south is an 

 ornithological curiosity. Birds which are at once inhabi- 

 tants of the extreme north of Europe, and yet capable of 

 enduring the summer-heats of the Andalucian plains, set at 

 nought one's ideas of geographical distribution. As already 

 mentioned, we also found in April the Dunlin nesting on 

 the lower Guadalquivir, and our friend Mr. W. C. Tait has 

 detected the Common Sandpiper remaining to breed on the 

 Lima and Minho in Portugal. 



There also lay scattered on the dry mud many clutches 

 of smaller eggs belonging to two other species, the Kentish 

 Plover and Lesser Eing-dotterel. The latter, less common, 

 were only beginning to lay, choosing the drier, gravelly 

 ridges of the islets. The eggs of the Kentish plover we 

 had found as early as April 14th, and in May many were 

 already much incubated. Neither of these make any nest 

 — nothing but a few broken shells — and some eggs were 

 deposited in a hollow scratched in dried cattle-droppings. 

 On these islands* were also many nests of the Spanisb| 

 Short-toed lark (Calandrella bcetica, Dresser — a species 

 peculiar to this region), artlessly built of dry grass, and 

 placed in small hollows like a dunlin's, sometimes among 

 thistles, as often on bare ground without covert. We 

 found the first eggs on May 9th. On the larger grassy 

 islands there also breed the Calandra, Crested and Short- 

 toed Larks, with Ortolan, Common and Eeed-buntings. 



* "When first hatched, the legs of the young Stilts are quite short.; 

 but by mid- June are of medium length, pale clay-colour, and curiously 

 swollen about the knee-joint. The upper plumage of the young at 

 that date is mottled brown, irides brown. By the following January 

 these young Stilts have acquired a black and white plumage ; but the 

 irides remain dark, and the legs a pale pink. The adults vary in the ' 

 disposition of black and white in their plumage, especially on head 

 and neck, and some few have the breast prettily tinged with roseate. 



