BIRD-LIFE OF THE SPANISH SPRING-TIME. 239 



— Our captures to-day included 3 eagles, 4 kites, 2 large 

 hawks, 5 ducks, an egret, 2 stone-plover, &c. First, Felipe 

 woke me at day-break to say a pair of aguiluchos had just 

 coursed and killed a hare within 200 yards of the tent. 

 Turned out in jersey and alparagatas, and stalked the spot 

 indicated, when a small eagle flew from a tree away in 

 the scrub to the left. I stood up, thinking the game was 

 gone, when a second Booted Eagle (Aquila pennata) rose 

 from the ground not forty yards ahead, and was secured. 

 Later on, during the mid-day heat, we thrice descried 

 eagles perched on high trees — unusual luck. Both the 

 first and second stalks failed, owing partly to bad marking 

 in the first case, and to ' impossible ' terrain in the second. 

 The third, however, I killed — a very handsome tawny 

 eagle. He was sitting on a pine in the centre of a circular 

 swampy jungle : there was no considerable difficulty in 

 creeping round the outside, nor till the final, direct 

 approach commenced, when the ground became very bad 

 ■ — for the last 100 yards, strong briar-bound thicket and 

 tussocks of spear-grass with deep bog-pools between, water 

 up to, one's waist. Had got to fifty yards when he saw 

 me, and a lucky shot killed him as he opened his 

 wings. Also stalked to-day two Harriers — a Marsh-Harrier 

 (female) and a beautiful blue old Montagu: in the first 

 case the stalk was supplemented by a short ' drive ' by 

 Felipe. At dusk we observed a pair of Serpent-Eagles 

 go to roost in a large single alcornoque : waited till dark, 

 when we crept, barefoot, towards the tree, one on either 

 side, and I killed the female eagle as she flew out into the 

 moonlight. During the day we had found five nests of 

 the Kite — shot four birds for identification, two from nest, 

 the others after long puestos — and also brought in r besides 

 the eagles, &c, two Gadwall, a Garganey drake, two 

 White-eyed Pochard, an egret, seven terns (various), 

 several small birds, and twenty-nine eggs — a memor- 

 able day!" To stalk to within gunshot of an eagle, 

 on the open plain, is almost as difficult an operation as 

 any in our experience — that is unless, as sometimes 

 happens, the conditions are unusually favourable. 



