BIRD-LIFE OF THE SPANISH SPRING-TIME. 255 



Apiil 30th. — Shot the first Eusset-necked Nightjar and 

 observed Melodious Willow-Warblers (Hypolais polyghtta) . 

 Enormous passage of Swallows to-day. This is also the 

 date when the Little Bittern and Squaeco Heron are due. 



May 3rd. — Black Terns appeared. The only other 

 nesting species yet to arrive are ,the Spotted Flycatcher, 

 Pallid Warbler (Hypolais opaca), and the remainder of the 

 Nightjars, Bufous Warblers, &c. 



May 4th. — Camp in mid-marisma. All this night, 

 commencing about 10 p.m., a stream of migrating birds 

 kept passing overhead. From the dark sky resounded for 

 hours the cries of gulls and terns, sundry small land- 

 birds, whimbrels, plovers and sandpipers of various 

 species : besides harsher shrieks and notes that resembled 

 those of hawks and herons of some kind. 



Amidst such wealth of bird-life lies work for many 

 spring-visits. The nesting-season, moreover (the most 

 interesting period to the ornithologist), extends over a 

 greater period of time than is the case at home. In Spain, 

 with its early spring and warm equable climate, it might 

 be supposed that most birds would nest both early and 

 more or less simultaneously. But this is not the case. 

 The period of reproduction, with birds, appears to be pro- 

 longed proportionately as one approaches the equator. In 

 the far north, where summer is short and sharply defined, 

 this period is the same. Thus in the arctic lands of Spits- 

 bergen and Novaya Zemlya, it is limited to six weeks, and 

 in Lapland and Siberia to two months or so, extending in 

 Central Europe, roughly speaking, to three. In Andalucia 

 domestic duties last, with one species or another, over half 

 the year. There are cases in which nidification commences 

 before Christmas— as with the Lammergeyer, Bonelli's 

 Eagle, and the Eagle-Owl : the Griffon Vultures and some 

 others are only a little later. Whereas; on the other 

 hand, some of the herons do not nest till June : Aidpn 

 galactodes and the Little Bustard are still incubating 

 in July, and the Flamingoes breed so late that their 

 young can hardly be on the wing before the latter 

 month. 



