MISS M. L. BUXTON ON A TRIP TO SPAIN. 671 
Cuckoo. After seeing a good many Buff-backed and 
Purple Herons and Little Egrets, we came to the lagoons, 
round one of which a quantity of these birds were sitting in 
the tree heather which grows some six or eight feet high there. 
We rode in among them finding hundreds and hundreds of 
them with Night Herons and Spoonbills, and then we suddenly 
realized that they were breeding and that we were right in 
among their nests which are of the most sketchy description. 
1 hey were built two to five feet from the water, among the 
heather which is very straggly, and hardly appears strong 
enough to bear the weight of a Thrush’s nest, far less a large 
colony of Herons. It was one of the most wonderful sights, 
all these thousands of great white birds, that made a noise 
like the wind as they rose, whitening the sky. One could 
touch them with a stick and it was too absurd to see them 
trying to settle on the extreme tips of the heather with their 
long, awkward legs. The Purple Herons were mostly breeding 
in the next lagoon, and the two nests I looked into had five and 
six eggs respectively, though Col. Irby in his ‘Ornithology of 
the Straits of Gibraltar,’ says, “ As a rule they lay three eggs, 
rarely four.” and Mr. Howard Saunders also gives three as 
the number. On our way home we rode by other lagoons 
and low sandhills, seeing a great number of Ducks — chiefly 
Pochards, Ferruginous and Tufted. There was one pair of 
Widgeon, though these birds do not often stay after March. 
Also Great Crested and Eared Grebes and by the edge of the 
lagoon we found Kentish Plovers and Dunlins, the latter very 
handsome in their summer plumage. 
We were watching a Norfolk Plover when suddenly our 
dogs, of which we had seven or eight, began barking loudly, 
and out of the bush ran a splendid old Wild Boar. As may be 
imagined we were very soon in hot pursuit, and, we had some 
good views of him till he finally took us to the forest, and 
there we left him. He was the only one we saw, and I think 
we were lucky to see him so well. That evening we sat outside 
listening to the Norfolk Plovers and Little Owls which seem 
to swarm in those parts. 
As our chief object was to see Flamingos and Wild 
