CHAPTER XXXVIL 
A SPANISH SYSTEM OF FOWLING 
THE “ CABRESTO” OR STALKING-HORSE 
Sparn is a land of flocks and herds, of breeders and graziers. At 
the head of the scale stands the fighting-bull, monarch of the 
richest vegas; at the opposite extreme come the shaggy little 
ponies and brood-mares that eke out a feral and precarious 
subsistence in the wildest regions. Throughout the marismas 
hardy beasts with wild-bred progeny on which no human hand 
has ever laid, abound, grazing knee-deep in watery wildernesses 
where tasteless reed or wiry spear-grass afford a bare subsistence. 
There they live, splashing in the shadows, heads half-immersed 
as they pull up subaquatic herbage; on the back of one rides 
perched a snow-white egret, on another a couple of magpies, 
preying on ticks or warbles, while all around swim wildfowl that 
scarce deign to move aside. 
No fowler could view such a scene without perceiving that 
approach to the wildfowl might be effected under cover of these 
unsuspected ponies. The earliest aucipial mind probably realised 
the advantage offered, and the system has been practised in Spain 
from time immemorial. 
The method is simple. The ponies (termed, when trained, 
cabrestos, or “decoys”) seem by intuition to realise what is 
required. By a cord attached to the headstall, the fowler, 
crouching behind the shoulder, directs his pony’s course towards 
the unconscious fowl. At intervals, still further to disarm 
suspicion, feigned halts are made as though to simulate grazing. 
Before closing in, the nose-cord is made fast to the near fore- 
knee, thus holding the pony’s head well down. Presently the 
ducks are within half gunshot, and we amateurs (whose doubled 
backs ache excruciatingly from a constrained position maintained 
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