330 Unexplored Spain 
He will search hundreds of acres for a problematical hare, and a 
long day’s hunt with his trusty pachén is amply rewarded by a 
couple or two of diminutive rabbits about half the weight of ours, 
but whose speed verily stands in inverse ratio. For the life of 
the Spanish rabbit is passed in the midst of alarms; supremely 
conscious of soaring eagles and hawks overhead, he never willingly 
shows in the open by daylight, or if forced to it, then terror lends 
wings to his feet. The death of a hare, however, represents to 
the cazador the climax of terrestrial triumph. In those ecstatic 
moments the animal (average weight 4% lbs.) is held aloft by 
the hind-legs, a subject for admiration and self-gratulation ; 
mentally it is weighed again and again to a chorus of soliloquising 
ejaculations, “‘ Grande como un chivo” =as big as a kid! 
The quail, though extremely abundant at its passage-seasons 
(when in September the Levante, or S.E. wind, blows for days 
together, blocking their transit to Africa, Andalucia is crammed 
with accumulated quails), yet represents but a small morsel in a 
culinary sense, and is swift of wing to boot. Neither of these 
attributes commend its pursuit to our friend with the rusty single- 
barrel ; and similar reasons bear, with increased force, on the case 
of snipe. These game-birds are left severely alone—that is, with 
the gun. 
Bags of twenty brace of quail (and in former years of forty or fifty 
brace) may then be made where, on the wind changing next day, never a 
quail will be found. 
In spring, again, great numbers pass northward, but many remain to 
nest on the fertile vegas of Guadalquivir and on the plains of Castile. 
At that season quail are chiefly taken by nets; but on systems so 
cunning and elaborate that we regret having no space for descriptive 
detail. Put briefly, in Andalucia the fowler spreads a gossamer-woven 
fabric loosely over the growing corn; then, lying alongside, by means of 
a pito (an instrument that exactly reproduces the dactylic call-note of the 
quarry) induces every combative male within earshot either to run 
beneath or to alight precisely upon the outspread snare. So perfect is 
the imitation that quail will even run over the fowler’s prostrate form in 
their search for the adversary. In Valencia living call-birds (hung in 
cages on poles) are substituted for the pito, and the net is more of a 
fixture—small patches of the previous autumn’s crop being left uncut 
expressly to attract quail to definite points. 
The Andalucian quail frequents palmetto-scrub and is very local— 
rarely can more than two or three couple be killed in a day, and that 
