388 



WILD SPAIN. 



swinging flight of teal or swift garganey,* then at the 

 more stately pintails, next at a single shcveler-drake 

 on his straight and hurried course. Now the ten- 

 bore is useful for a string of mallards which are already 

 seeking safer altitudes, and for a couple of curlews, for 

 once at fault. But we need not recapitulate, even were 

 it possible to remember, the rapid sequence of shots, 

 which for an hour were almost continuous. Shots of 

 every kind there offered — incoming, outgoing, to right and 

 left, direct or oblique, and at every height and angle, 

 acute, obtuse, and perpendicular. Now a flight of wigeon, 

 skimming low on the water-level, suddenly fling themselves 

 in one's face, all unseen till far too near ; then from 

 behind, with a rush as of a whirlwind, a trip of swift- 

 winged teal or swifter garganeys almost take one's hat 

 off, then " sky " like rockets, on seeing the danger — 

 difficult to stop are these ! At intervals, there is a vari- 

 ation, when, during the earlier part of the action, the 

 files of grey geese are seen and heard as they sail along, 

 looming so huge among the smaller fowl. They are 

 not too high as, outward-bound, they cross our posts ; but 

 let them get well over-head, as near as ever they will 

 come, ere you open fire, or no mighty splash in the water 

 behind will gratify your ear. The bulk of the shooting, 

 however, is at files of duck speeding fast and straight in 

 bee-lines overhead : high as a rule, mostly very high, the 

 sort of shot that, once learnt, can be generally pulled off 

 — and satisfactory shots they are, requiring an infinite 

 degree of faith and forward allowance. 



At the end of an hour the file-firing slackened, but 

 still for another hour it continued fairly fast. The larger 

 ducks and the geese had betaken themselves to the sea, or 

 to the dried marisma respectively ; but great numbers of 

 wigeon and the smaller ducks still sought resting-places 

 up and down the long Eetuerta. Of the geese but few 

 comparatively had fallen, though thousands were seen in 



* Garganeys are said to be the swiftest of all the duck-tribe, and 

 to lead the migrating flights, both on their southern journey and 

 also when steering north. Hence their name : " capitanes." 



