BIRD-LIFE OF THE SPANISH SPRING-TIME. 249 



Hoopoes, some in hollow trees, one in a ruined outhouse, 

 which we were using as a stable, and which, in a previous 

 year, had been similarly occupied by a Boiler, and always 

 affords a home to two or three pairs of the Spotless or 

 Sardinian Starling (Sturnvs unicolor), a species which, in 

 spring, replaces the common kind. On the outskirts of 

 the woods were many nests of Goldfinch and Serinfmch, 

 Common and Green Linnets, Blue and Great Tit, Willow- 

 Wren, Woodchat, &c. ; and in the open rushy glades, those 

 of Black-headed Warbler, Blackcap and Garden Warbler, 

 Whitethroat, Spotted Flycatcher, Grey-headed Wagtail 

 (Motacilla cinereocapiUa), and others. I looked in vain 

 in these pine-woods for the Crested Tit, which occurs near 

 Gibraltar, and which my brother found numerous in 

 Navarre. On the 10th May I found a couple of Nightin- 

 gales' nests in the tiny garden-patch adjoining a forester's 

 cot, and a week later obtained several nests of the Melodi- 

 ous Willow-Warbler (Hypolais polyglotta) with their beauti- 

 ful vinous-pink eggs ; later still (May 28th), those of the 

 Bufous Warbler (Mdon galactodes) among the cactus- 

 bushes : — but this is getting suspiciously like a catalogue. 



One circumstance deserves passing remark — the rela- 

 tively smaller number of eggs laid in the south than is 

 the case with many of the same species further north. In 

 Spain, several of the warblers, &c. above mentioned, lay 

 only four eggs ; the Blackbird, as a rule, but three, and 

 these much brighter coloured than at home. 



Delightful days were those spent riding through these 

 pathless forests, redolent of the exhalations of pine and 

 rosemary, and a hundred aromatic shrubs, and resplendent 

 with the glory of the southern spring-time. What words 

 can convey the contrast of dark pinal and dazzling sand- 

 waste, or catch the play of sunlight glancing through 

 massed foliage on russet trunks and the soft pale verdure 

 of the brushwood ? For long leagues these forests stretch 

 unbroken save by rushy glades and park-like opens, where 

 at dusk the Bed Deer come to seek rich pasturage, and 

 the Wild Boar ploughs deep trenches in his search for suc- 

 culent roots, varied by a bonne-bouche of mole- crickets. 



