96 Unexplored Spain 
from water; hence each man had to hide as best he could, 
prostrate behind rush-tuft or twelve-inch samphire. 
This morning, however, the greylags flew wide and scattered, 
in strange contrast with their customary regularity. We noticed 
the change, but knew not the cause. The geese did. The 
barometer during the night (unnoticed by us at 4 a.m.) had 
gone down half an inch, and already, as we assembled for breakfast 
at ten o'clock, rain was beginning to fall—the first rain since the 
spring! The wind, which for weeks had remained “ nailed to the 
North—norte clavado,” in Spanish phrase—flew to all airts, and 
a change was at hand. By eleven there burst what the Spanish 
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a ek Ge 
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ny 
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POCHARD (Fuligula ferina) 
well name a tormenta; lightning flashed from a darkened sky, 
while thunder.rolled overhead, and rain drove horizontal on 
a living hurricane. An hour later the heavens cleared, and the 
sun was shining as before. That short and sudden storm, how- 
ever, had marked an epoch. The whole conditions of bird-life in 
the marisma had been revolutionised within a couple of hours. 
In other years, under such conditions as this morning had 
promised, we have records of sixty and eighty greylags brought 
to bag, and it was with such anticipation that we had set out 
to-day. The result totalled but a quarter of such numbers. 
Ducks came next in our programme, and the writer, being 
the last gun by lot, had several miles to ride to his remote post 
at El Hondén. The scenes in bird-life through which we rode 
