384 Unexplored Spain 
Spain before, not even in winter. This was at the Hondon. A 
similar phenomenon was observed with the white-faced ducks. 
These curious creatures also remained in packs, and without sign 
of pairing, on the open waters of Santolalla—open only because 
aquatic plants had forborne to grow. In normal seasons these 
lakes are studded with great cane-brakes and islanded reed-jungles, 
within whose recesses these amphibians build their floating homes. 
This spring not a reed had grown—partly owing to cattle having 
destroyed the earlier shoots which are usually protected by deep 
water. There was literally no covert within which these ducks 
(and the swarming coots and grebes) could breed, even were they 
so minded—which they were not! 
The only ducks that had paired in earnest were gadwall, gar- 
ganey,commonand white-eyed 
pochard (of which the first 
three nest here in very limited 
numbers), together with 
normal quantities of mallard. 
A collateral result of the 
shortage of water wrought yet 
further havoc among the birds 
which had elected to remain, 
and accentuated the prescience 
of those that had departed. 
Nesting-places, ordinarily islanded in mid-water, were now left 
stranded on dry land and thus open to the ravages of the whole 
fraternity of four-footed ego-devouring vermin. Many species, 
we know, foresee such risks and invariably avoid them; others, 
less prudent, make the attempt and lose their labour. The white- 
eyed pochards, for example, which are accustomed to nest in 
islanded clumps of rush and dense aquatic grasses, this year 
simply provided free breakfasts to rats and ichneumons! We 
happened to require two or three settings of these ducks to 
hatch-off under hens, but no sooner did a marked nest contain 
three or four eggs than all were devoured! As to the coots, of 
which both the common and crested species breed in the marisma 
in myriads, they simply gave it up as a bad business. They did 
not depart, but resigned themselves to the necessity of skipping 
a season. 
Gulls, great and small, with graceful marsh-terns, floated 
HEAD OF CRESTED COOT 
The frontal plate is concave, whereas in the common 
coot it is convex. 
