The Coto Dojfiana 4I 
—there pours into Andalucia an inrush of African and sub- 
tropical bird-forms. The sunlit woodland gleams with brilliant 
rollers and golden orioles, while bee-eaters, rivalling the rainbow 
in gorgeous hues, poise and dart in the sunshine, and their harsh 
“chack, chack,” resounds on every side. Woodchats, spotted 
cuckoos, hoopoes, and russet nightjars appear; lovely wheatears 
in cream and black adorn the palm-clad plain. With them comes 
the deluge—no epitomised summary is possible when, within brief 
limits, the whole feathered population of southern Europe is 
metamorphosed. The winter half has gone north; its place is 
filled by the tropical 
inrush aforesaid. 
Warblers and waders, 
larks, finches, and 
fly -catchers, herons, 
ibis, ducks, gulls, and 
terns—all orders and, 
genera pour in pro- 
miscuously, defying 
cursory analysis. 
A single class only 
will here be specific- 
ally mentioned, and 
that because it throws 
light on climatic con- GREAT SPOTTED CUCKOO (Oxylophus glandarius) 
ditions. Among these 
vernal arrivals come certain raptores in countless numbers—all 
those which are dependent on reptile and insect food. For even 
in sunny Andalucia the larger reptiles and insects hibernate ; 
hence their persecutors (including various eagles, buzzards, and 
harriers, with kites and kestrels in thousands) are driven to seek 
winter-quarters in Africa. 
Another phenomenon deserves note. Weeks, nay months, 
after this great vernal upturn in bird-life has completed its 
revolution, and when the newcomers have already half finished 
the duties of incubation, then in May suddenly occurs an utterly 
belated little migration quite disconnected from all the rest. This 
is the passage, or rather through-transit, of those far-flying 
cosmopolites of space that make the whole world their home. 
They have been wintering in South Africa and Madagascar, in 
