272 



WILD SPAIN. 



human life well nigh intolerable. The very toads are there 

 as big as small footstools ; the natives yellow and sunken- 

 eyed, with hollow cheeks and parchment skin. 



Here, when summer-heats provoke miasma and fetid 

 airs, languor-laden, from the morass, the herons eon- 



-^TO*? 



BUFF-BACKED HEKON. 



gregate. In June their slight nests crowd the sallow- 

 brakes and clumps of gnarled alders and aspens islanded 

 in marsh, and barricaded with bramble and vicious thorny 

 zarzas. Amidst umbrageous gloom the Night-Heron 

 and Bittern dream away the hours of daylight, the 

 former among the branches, the latter in thickest sedge. 



