378 Unexplored Spain 
let us here admit that, being fowlers as well as naturalists, our 
observance of the phenomenon has usually been carried out upon 
a lucio which happens to terminate towards the N.E. in a long 
narrow bight fringed by tall reeds and bulrush, where, con- 
cealed in friendly covert, we can continue the observation while 
glancing along the barrel of a punt-gun. That secondary fact 
is merely incidental and, it so happens, facilitates the main object. 
A mile to windward three such armies are mobilising separately 
within the scope of our view; and now the gentle force of that 
gea-breeze begins to impel those unconscious hosts, too pre- 
occupied with all-absorbing passion 
to notice detail, directly towards the 
point whereat we lie concealed. 
By this time the sun has three 
or four hours of declension and the 
thin dark line representing thousands 
of surging atoms has drifted down 
to within 200 yards. We can study 
at short range an amazing pheno- 
menon. In weird exuberance they 
fight and flirt, chase, cherish, and 
flap till churned water flies in foam 
and a discordant roar of sibilant 
arEERUe sound fills to the zenith the voids 
A winter visitor to the marismas. of space. The volume of voices 
defies description since these assem- 
bling multitudes belong to no single species, but include a pro- 
miscuous agglomeration of all that care to enlist, and each adds 
its own distinctive element to the general uproar.t Around the 
floating host new-comers buzz like swarming bees, each seeking 
some spot to wedge itself into the crowd. 
To-night the main corro that we had been awaiting drifted 
past our front a trifle beyond effective range. The two that 
followed both “took the ground” and remained stationary, away 
to the right. The chance of making a great shot had failed ; 
but we were content to watch the phenomenon to its finish. 
Now the sun dips. The western sky is filled with golden 
glory; in twenty short minutes darkness will have enveloped 
One feels convinced, while lying listening, that these exuberant fowl invent and formulate 
a series of new notes and cries special to the occasion and outside their normal vocabulary. 
Hence, possibly, originated the use of the term “ Corro.” 
