Sketches of Spanish Bird-Life 393 
II. AN IsoLtateD CRAG IN ANDALUCIA 
Within an easy half-day’s ride from X. lie the cliffs of Chipipi, 
rising in crenellated tiers from the winding river at their base. It 
is a lovely May morning. Doves in dozens dash away as we ride 
through groves of white poplars, and the soft air is filled with 
their murmurous chorus ; the bush-clad banks are vocal with the 
song of orioles and nightin- 
gales, cuckoos, and a score 
of warblers—Cetti’s and 
orphean, Sardinian, poly- 
glotta, Bonelli’s. The hand- 
some rufous warbler, though 
not much of a songster, 
is everywhere conspicuous, 
flirting a boldly-barred, fan- 
shaped tail that catches one’s 
eye. There are woodchats, 
serins, hoopoes; azure-blue 
rollers squawk, and brilliant 
bee-eaters poise and chatter 
overhead—their nest-bur- 
rows perforate the river-bank 
hke a sand-martins’ colony. Nae 
On willow-clad eyots nest mid Pee eee eee nae 
lesser ring-dotterels and 
otters bask; while in the shaded depths beneath the fringing 
osiers lurk barbel intent to dash at belated grasshopper or cricket. 
In a thick lentiscus is the nest of a great grey shrike, and 
while we watch, its owner flies up carrying a lizard in her beak. 
Half an hour later we see a second shrike, with falcon-like dash, 
capture another lizard basking in a sunny cranny among the rocks 
—no mean performance that. There are snakes here also; one we 
killed, a coluber, on March 31, was 54 feet long and contained 
two rabbits swallowed whole and head first—one partly digested. 
Another snake, quite small, struck us as being something 
new; him we bottled in spirit and despatched to the British 
Museum. Presently came the reply, thanking us for a “ Lizard, 
Blanus cinereus.” Lizard? Well, we learnt a lesson. ‘There 
are limbless lizards, and this was one—the subterranean amphis- 
SAVI’S WARBLER (Sylvia savii) 
