Andalucia and its Big Game 61 
sense is held in tension to mark and measure each sign or sound : 
‘tis but the fall of a pine-cone that has caught your ear, but it 
might easily have been a single footfall of game. The wild-life 
of the wilderness pursues its daily course around unconscious of 
a concealed intruder in its midst. Overhead, busy hawfinches 
wrestle with ripening cones, swinging in gymnastic attitude. 
These are silent. You 
have first become aware 
of their presence by a 
shower of scales gently 
fluttering down upon the 
shrubbery of genista 
and rosemary alongside, 
amidst the depths of 
which lovely French-grey 
warblers with jet-black 
skull-caps (Sylvia 
melanocephala) pursue 
insect-prey with furious 
energy-—dashing into the 
tangle of stems reckless 
of damage to tender 
plumes. There are other 
bush - skulkers infinitely 
more reclusive than these 
—some indeed whose 
mere existence one could 
never hope to verify (in 
winter) save by patience and these hours of silent watching. 
Such are the Fantail, Cetti’s, and Dartford warblers, while 
among sedge and cane-brake alert reed-climbers beguile and 
delight these spells of waiting. Soldier-ants and horned beetles 
with laborious gait, but obvious fixity of purpose, pursue 
their even way, surmounting all obstruction—such as boot or 
cartridge-bag. Earth and air alike are instinct with humble life. 
To a northerner it is hard to believe that this is mid-winter, 
when aimost every tree remains leaf-clad, the brushwood green 
and flower-spangled. Arbutus, rosemary, and tree-heath are 
already in bloom, while bees buzz in shoulder-high heather and 
suck honey from its tricoloured blossoms — purple, pink, and 
REED-CLIMBERS 
